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.