| Earth
become the colour of parchment, as dry as unfleshed bone exposed to the
wind... thin lines are drawn across its surface... the shadows of lines
writing the unremembered name of a place... it is rubbed by a purple sea
into which stream mirrored rivers flowing from lakes the colour of lead
across great bleached plains where black roads stripe sometimes black sometimes
slate grey fields... trees of muted orange and stone pink bearing blue fruit
stand on lilac trunks alone or in woods... flame-like trees grow out of
the roofs of rust coloured houses on which obsessional texts have been scrawled
in white chalk... soot black trees grip the soil with white clawlike roots
holding the meaning of things in place... beyond light blue and umber hills
blood-red mountains rise into a grey-green sky scratched with pale ochre
and violet lines... there is a small clay vessel on the horizon which contains
the rest of the unseen world, redeemed from the subjugation of time and
compacted into a handful of dust. |