And who knows if maybe on that same night, not far along the coast…?
A different occasion; a different experience.
CALLED TO SWIM THE NIGHT
14th August 2020
The clever patient moon tries every curtain gap
To align our eyelids…
More effective than a cunning fisher’s lure, her silent beam!
Because we are who we are, possess a certain spirit
– Or are, indeed, possessed by it –
We know we can’t roll over and ignore:
So, throw back sheets, divine the watch’s luminous time,
Cat-step across, to part those shinesome hems…
So beautiful!
Arrestingly loud, her soundless call to come and swim;
And unbroken attention, she promises tonight:
No jealous interruptions of little brother clouds
Demanding turns for games up there with her…
From a dream’s leap beyond our window
With well-timed unwhispers she has woken us:
The tide is ebbed, the nearest strand awaits,
And the mutebomp hush from beyond our unstirred trees confirms –
Only littleknee surf, petulating the sand infantly weak.
This night, Selene shines with face half turned;
Thus we outshore into tripling glimmers:
Zigzag striplets of sky-silver,
Yellowdashes lanterning from far-anchored merchantmen,
Phosphorescence first shy but, as we deepen,
It all-frisks us, so persistently seeky
Those ribbonflow flickers,
That we feel like child-stared statues.
Abob a silent surface so allclear under,
Twistly must we strike down to breast-stroke faces up:
Now can the wishtoplay Moon begift our eyes
With such an air-mirrored dance of seaswirl refractions,
Grateful dives we must press to breath’s end
Again, and again, and so appreciatively again.
Here’s wondrous artistry as,
Eventually, we shorewards ourselves
Still lazy eel sea-stretched
Through the barely back-washing wavelets and then,
Rollovertokneelanduponfeet,
Run the beach to dry in the warmth of the cove’s kind air…
For while, shouldered high, still brights the Moon,
Already the north-east blushes dawn;
Thus start we the homeward with a loopwalk
Under pale peach gloom
Which just, but only just,
Lets us comb the midnight’s high line.
Where steepens the path, we’re glad of air-hungry yawns,
For here hedge honeysuckle most strongly fumes;
And we, enchanted, wonder: if Selene did now walk beside,
Would such a hithery, hither-me scent enflower her,
She’d us unpower?
A half-moon sky when we set out,
Compassed with perimeter stars;
Now, as we climb, only those path-treading planets
Can outstrength the coming of the Sun.
Full rocksure stratitude of land regained,
Eyes over hedgebanks distance-eager;
But Presceli does not show for, starting near,
The shire mists into blue.
Silently stepping the rosegap round the gatepost,
Our garden is already vicinitied
With swallow-stir
And the robin’s muty daystart trills.
Stepping inside, greets an air-taste we’d accustomed before we slept:
First juice-taut apples of the season
Waiting for taking, later today, to friends
Who’ve children goodly-appetited
But possess no early-fruiting trees.
So: start we now our day…?
Or again lie down, to seek salt-seeded reveries?
© Christopher Jessop 2020
