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Exeter rambling
There are times when every stone
speaks name and feelings to the air;
when every step
brings new voices like a dream.
Near the station
inaudible conversation rustles
from the bed-sits’ sandstone,
across the ranks of bleak estates
and out of town
to the watching pagan presence
of the distant hills.
I pick my path among these whispers, wander
to the river — broad, answering kin to the hills,
ancient even in concreted course.
Here, double choired, their voices join,
singing of sites whose soil
blends to our blood.
Then turn to town, to youth:
to leaping subway murals,
bikers’ knick-knacks and the sprouting myths
of new age shops,
speaking of angels.
From nowhere,
the invisible wings
of the watchers on the heights
(strange
silent ones,
calling us
by beauty)
are swimming,
leaping upwards
against the drifting
thistledown’s
breath. Breathe in their fiery hope!
And under the bridges,
where the cathedral path
leads out from lacy cloisters,
the changeless ground is
red, shining
my tossing thoughts into gossamer
and pools of light.
Chris Clarke, 12.10.98
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