A sore throat prevented me from going walking with friends today outside Tokyo, which was a shame. I was thus left with an unexpected day at home (so rare in these hectic times) for an imaginary walk around landscapes that mean the world to me, with the best guide you can wish for. Reading, writing, reading... that is, travelling.
Almost as good as a walk outside, or as...
Almost.
===========================
The story began
"Waking at five and passing into a jumble
of dreams that with time ended by
taking me into your arms.
Over the weeks apart our minds race
ahead of our bodies,
When we meet, when they catch up,
then like a golden light, yes?
descends upon us wholly.
The dream is right.
The words wrong-foot sometimes
but try to push through the briars,
leap over them sometimes,
Brer Rabbit and all."
But I built too much in those dreams?
Too many scars and losses behind us.
Yet this chance, come upon by accident,
precious but shakey.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Spoken into a mirror
"I travel to you
your warmth
To stand or lie in each other's arms
battle scars, tired of the old deceits
we come nervously to each other
yet surely (we think)
Is this the clarity
we dream of?
Not magic but more powerful
in its simplicity --
us
Guided out beyond the ramparts
the savage boors
Touch me . . . you"
and tinkling bells in the distance
and the words flatter themselves, words on words,
and the first flakes of snow falling softly,
the landscape whitening out
Lee Harwood, from 'Czech Dream', Collected Poems, pp. 429-31.
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