In St James

 

I lay sun-brushed and smothered;

The seeping day flowed beneath the midday

Air, the slow June sky hung high above,

Spreading swimming shadows about

My feet. The multrees whispered as away –

Far away – their branches and furrowed leaves

Brushed felted rushes. They spoke in low

Chimes, obscured and unheard, murmuring across

The ungraced canvas, a watcher’s quiet

leisure; a fresh-eyed tableau we saw

In the marsh – thinking the sky’s gloss

The palest ocean, and I the highest

Mountain – peering on the foamed boats’ slow

Passage between uncrest waves in sunlit glow.

 

In deep summer, the scorched earth underfoot,

Planes flew overhead, dipping in and out

Of clouds, alto and nimbo, I

Nimble-eyed traced a finger across the root

And stem of those smoky crystals, now about

My fingernail and vaporised high –

Destined to disappear; in fractal

Shapes, the blue swooned, full of teeming

Shards and soon – oblivion. Where loose-seated

Tactile giants floated above Hampstead’s

Ancient oaks – the valley gleaming

Below beech and sycamore trees, whose

Branch-fettered leaves seemed to envy the clouds

Slow witness of the hilled world’s turning hours.

 

Soon black clouds dilate the sky like a

Rush of blood to the heart, widening its veins;

Calmer waters rage – like undercurrents

beneath still rivers.

 

 

Words by Milo Ghiandai

Illustration by Lottie Thompson