Olivia
Trees as twisted as
history
With seemingly nothing but dust
And
rock to subsist on
Put out their straight, fresh greenery.
They might have been
old already
When peerless limbs of the ladies
Loved
in all centuries,
Those of the godly sisterhood
No worker could have
carved so clear,
Of Artemis, of Aphrodite,
Slipped
off the shade that flows
On roots gone down like stone in stone
And stepped into
their proper light,
Whether of moonbeam or sunray,
Assuming
the sacred
Gowns of their bright and naked selves.
Perhaps a thousand
times, with sticks
In their hard hands, the peasantry
Struck
the flanks of the trunks
To bring down the fruit thousandfold
Onto their blankets.
One by one
The sticks were let go and hard hands
Themselves
sank in the ground
Where still the sharp-stoned, dark drops fall.
Once a first flute
whistled there to
Stubborn goats, the horned lyre mixed its
Mingled
notes with a noon
Wind moving the silvering crown
Of long shoots trimmed
for signs of peace.
From wood as tortuous as time
The
grace of leaf has come
Again, ages into æons.
So in the harsh aridity
And in the dispiriting press
And
suck of the city,
As if from nowhere, now and then
A straightforward
beauty appears
Such as yours, that carries the air
And
colour of the new
To all before it like the dawn
That the unsleeping
birds announce,
And holds, like the moon when it rounds
To the
full in mid-sky,
Unneared by any cloud, the mind
Still with brimming
of thankfulness
And of wonder and, like the leaves
Of the
olive, invites
Our hearts
to be refreshed and hope.
John
Gibbens, from The Promise
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