All At Once 1984

All At Once 1984

september 1984

jp melville

Beneath this azure inverted plain

Our sky my sky her sky;

We have sound awakening to the dawn:

Her voice on the phone talking, wandering travels…

She there downstairs, the stillness, birds, and careful listening

Somewhere far away the highway drifts sounds beckons a mile away

She turns her eyes to the windows,

Turns to listen…

Birds chirrup, footsteps grind in gravel driveway,

Tractor rumbles warming to work,

Horse snorts, whinnies

And distant far far far…. clack metal wheels a train to nowhere…

Goodbye in whispers, she hangs up the phone…

All about her stillness in the house downstairs

Coolness, quiet, wooden floors, coral coloured walls

Dry crisp air alive, with morning light,

Two dogs she wakes, calls them:

“Roo! Roo! Lara! Lara!”

Her hips slide through the rooms the dining room, the kitchen

To a sink, a mirror

To see herself

To brush her teeth, she watches her eyes her own…

I lie in bed wrapped in sheet

On my stomach

I hold my bare calves and feet behind me

Rub them together while I write…

The sunlight reaches just to tips of treetops hardly yet

A roar drives by in distant fields

And nearby someone pittering, puttering about outside

Workers us me you them she all of us but not today

For today, my knee cracks

And she watches almond eyes in the mirror, all gone still…

What is beautiful to me?

Imagery

Of her in my home, her home…

Her face, her hands, her voice, her almond eyes

To which I see

To which I hear…

We beneath this morning’s azure sky

There, here, she there, me here

Dream-scape, moment-scape

Our sky inverted plane, our fields our barns our home

All at once beneath this morning’s azure sky.