In Milan
Flew down to Milan for two days for a conference. It’s given me time to go see the works at the Brera, among other things, including this one:
Autumn colours
Since I only have a shit camera right now, I thought I’d post this instead. There’s these amazing trees across the valley. Their leaves are falling fast. The ground around is carpeted with them. The outer leaves at the branch ends are orange and pink, and nearer the trunk the leaves are a paler brighter yellow, and you get exactly the same pattern carried over onto the ground beneath. It looks just like the inside of a cut peach.
[Top]New poem
Hide and Raven
Follow the raven to the glade
down the trail
from the hide where it lurked
alert for carrion
– now silhouetted black
against sun-dappled foliage,
a miniature guard tower.
The rush of air under dark wings
as it backtracks
above the forest canopy
sounds like breathless fugitives
or panting hounds.
The ravens croak, each to each,
and all around, water drops
patter down through branches
and frosty air
that makes my exhalations smoke,
and, at the end of the forked path,
another mossed abandoned hide.
An unkindness of ravens flies
from the broken oak within
the Pauline convent’s ruins where
the blond wood cross shines in the sun.