The Evening of Greuze

from Chinese Whispers (2002)

        As a group we were somewhat vulnerable
	and are so today.  My brother-in-law has fixed
	me a tower in the mill, from whose oriel
	I can see the bluebottles who nag heaven
	with their unimportance.  But what are they expected to do?
	Raise families?  Become deacons?  If so my calculations
	collapse into bric-a-brac, my equations
	are undone.
	 
        Across the road they are building a cement house.
	It will seemingly have no windows.  A columbarium
	for cement pigeons.  And ever as I talked to you
	down the decades in my letters one thing was unsure:
	your reply.  Now we are again endangered,
	like dead birds, and autumn’s ruby spittle mounts
	in the sky like a tornado.  Try to keep
	cold and empty in this bare room.
	The lizard’s glint, the horse’s velvet blanket
	will surprise you into veiled hope one day.