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Accidents of Composition

... There Could Be Accidents of Kindness Here

Spinifex Press Pty Ltd

AFTER THE GRAND CANYON

It's an accident
of composition: sun, sky, bird.
White orb on storm grey
punctuated by a raven —
but which composes which
and which is accidental?
Is it the sun
a hole
sucking in a bird
or Icarus about
to singe the sun?
Against the grey
soft and sinister,
anything is possible.
Look: barely a thumbspan
between
sun and bird
before the answer is given,
enough to fit
the fingerprint of god.


LUCY AFLOAT

After the scattering of ashes
Pulpit Rock, Blue Mountains

And then the light
on these layers of grief,
grit, glow
that make a rock.

From blinding white
to ochre soft, then rust
and pink running
into each other —
who knows which colour came first
or if the glow came
before the grit
before the grief?

Not even the rock knows
the secrets of its chronology.

It is we who look
who think we know
or wish to know
as we stand on it
to steady our feet,
steady our own running
into each other
and into grief
or grit
or glow.


MOTHER MOUNTAIN

Karst mountains, Yangshuo

You make we want
to kneel, to pray
even if I have tucked away
all the prayings of my childhood
in a box misplaced somewhere.

O arc of your crown
of green hair, fringe hiding
limestone brow lined
by water, wind, sun, maybe
even storms and all our years

of looking —
eyes have a way
of wearying those looked at:
awe, obeisance, even joy
are a burden of their own

even from a child
in love with her mother —
and you have your own children,
one cleaved to your cheek,
the others hovering,

eternally unweaned
as we all are
at your feet looking up,
returning to rock, earth, green,
beseeching you:

look back,
look kindly
on us, even if we have not been
kind, even if we barely look
back at our wayward tracks.

My prayer,
small, inept.
At your feet, the bamboos bow,
sway, lift limbs and leaves —
theirs, the truer prayer.


DREAM OF CLOVES

Perhaps at twelve, Fernão de Magalhães
dreamt of cloves. Brown gold,
he heard it whispered in 1492
at Queen Leonora's court.
So each night, as Page Fernão
closed his eyes,
a perfect earlobe hovered
above his bed, like a sacred reliquary
peeking from a braid of hair
and studded with a shimmer
darker than amber,
deeper than cat's eyes.
Within his reach,
how pale the lobe
pierced by this brown jewel,
this rare clavus — how still
this first dream that bloomed
into a whole ear
like a most fragrant flower
closing in on him,
close enough to whisper into:
Brown gold, he'd say,
the way His Majesty did
to his Queen, voice low
and full of import, lips almost
kissing her ear, her braid of hair
a-quiver with his breath.
But thirst stunned the boy,
parched his throat, his tongue.
Before Fernão could open his mouth,
the perfect ear rose
to the ceiling, winged now,
an ear-bird with a radiant eye,
this most precious find across vast oceans,
this brown gold that grew on trees
at the other side of the world,
this dream of kings, of mariners, of cooks.
Perhaps, Fernão missed
his chance each night
to pluck it free
from that wayward ear
teasing him to dream of conquests,
when all that the boy desired
was to flavour his sopa de lentilha.


AUGURIES OF A FISH

Perhaps it pans the room.
Perhaps it sees, all in order
not accidental but deliberate,
precise: Adelma hovering
among jars of azeite de oliva.

The virgin one,
the fruity one,
the lighter one?

There are choices here,
her one hand on the blade,
the other on her belly
howling back to Cape Verde
where she was chosen

because she was a little
lighter than her sisters
and she can cook.

Traders make good choices,
so did the Portuguese
captain who herded her
and fifty others to his ship —
then the endless Atlantic.

The virgin one,
the fruity one,
the lighter one?

She picks the perfect
olive oil for the cod,
its gills opening shutting
on the kitchen table.
Master wants it fresh,
wants the first pick
of this fiel amigo,
this faithful friend

or soon to be.
When all is said and done,
head in the pot for stock,
body filleted, spread out
and salted, indeed how faithful

it will be to the palate
of the Queen Leonora,
lover of bacalhau com natas
(and of her King, of course).

Again, her belly kicks.
Again, she hears it howl
all the way to her home in Cape Verde

and the memory of metal
around her ankles,
and a hand checking her teeth, breasts,
between her legs, lingering there
before the price was paid.

The virgin one,
the fruity one,
the lighter one?

On the kitchen table,
it hears the questions in her head
between trader and captain.
Again it pans the room,
then rests on the blade

just as Page Fernão
rushes in to report
that Queen Leonora has changed

her mind. There are choices here:
not cataplana de marisco
but sopa de lentilha with
a dash of clove, please.
The boy is polite,

well mannered, bright
as the stars he studies
each night, as he navigates
his books, his dreams.

Adelma, the new cook, nods,
pressing her belly,
Hush my little one,
and gripping the blade.

Again it pans the room and stops:
eye of fish locks with eye of boy.
This cod has always known.

This is where it begins and ends:
in the kitchen, the port
of all hungers, all thirsts.
But dreamers never dock,
so the gaze of Page Fernão

moves on, arrested
by the blade, the swerve,
the splatter of blood,
the final thrash of tail,
the petrifying of the eye

now locking in the boy again, in death:

on the other side of the world,
Fernão, you too will be gutted
by the namesake of a fish.


BALLAD OF THE LOST FISHES

En route the South China Sea

Where's the way to the reef? the tuna asks the grouper.
Where's the reef? the grouper asks the sardine.
Where's us? the reef asks.

The sea is quiet. It has lost its way.

Where are the fishes? the fisherman asks his son.
Where's the sea? the son asks his mother.
Where's us? the mother asks.

The sea is quiet. It has become land.

Where's us? again the mothers ask the fathers
ask the sons ask the daughters
as the last fishes stare

at all mothers fathers sons daughters

lost on land and laid on a plate, still
and staring back at them,
like them, once,

eyes wide open with no one to close them.


FEATHER, SEAHORSE AND ATOMIC
EXPLOSION

For Dai Fan, Cloud Woman

On cobalt blue, a white feather, oh how soft against Iowa's sky. Afloat,
fallen from a tern en route to the other side of the world.

Then a seahorse glowing peach swallowed the late sun in Mornington, so
a wary moon pretends it's only a toenail adrift on grainy blue.

Now a huge white-grey devouring the sky turning indigo in Denver,
aftermath of the atom bomb over silhouette of pines, sentinels or
charred remains.

Your triptych of clouds. I see them in your photographs
captioned feather, seahorse, atomic
explosion sighted across continents.

I see them and see more. Such is the passage from eyes to eyes, an
evolution.

And the sky
looks back at us
seeking signs
we wish to see
from whatever ground
holds us, shapes us:

sometimes feather soft
loyal as a seahorse
malignant like
the atom bomb.

But in the driest season
it's the same
for us and clouds,
always
the evolution
of a wish
for rain
new grass
and maybe
even flowers.

THE FLOWERS THAT WOULD NOT OPEN

The mute child went to the doctor, because the flowers would not open. The doctor listened to his heart and sent him home. So the child returned to the flowers, tended them until he was a grown man. Still, the flowers would not open. One night, as an old man with an ailing heart, he visited the closed buds but tripped and fell. The buds quivered at the touch of his lips, at the last beat of his heart. Tierra [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] lupâ [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] föld whenua jörð bamal budongo [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] earth ... it said in all tongues. And the flowers remembered how to open.

NEVER

Never, never speak to me
in the tongue of little roses.
Each petal hurts
because I live in white noise.
Each petal kills —
how red the wound
against the white. How fatal.


CALLE VERDE

Verde que te quiero verde.
— Romance Sonámbulo, Federico Garcia Lorca

Suddenly shadows
after the noonday glare
and you look up
and understand

why the suddenness
why the shadows
after so much sun —
look, a green canopy

of Bignonia Rosa
almost from end
to end of a narrow
calle — called Verde?

So your heart
contracts, narrow
now as your breath
caught again

by the ghost of a poet
looming Green, green,
I love you green,
chasing you all

the way from Granada
to Seville, and here
you slip out
of your skin

to Verde carne,
your hair growing
Pelo verde —
how this green

from waiting
for the dead
grown over and over
by moss, by age

yet longing to return
to his gitana
now long dead
from waiting,

her skin green-hued
by all the love years
lost: their green wind
still bristling

the sour agaves,
the hint of mint
and sweet basil
still sneaking

into your tongue
thick with old
earth — but then
a cat purrs

from a window
or so you think
and you are returned
to this alley

of trumpet blooms
and Green, green,
I love you green
slips out

of the shadows
and becomes
this Verde dripping
pink and lilac

and light dappling
the shadowed
cobblestones
that sing,

Un momento, por favor,
ahora es la hora
de la hora —
so listen, poet,

to what is growing
in the hour of the hour
lest you miss
the music.


STILL LIFE

For Yanfen and Guanwen

Eyes closed, cheek resting on his old rose shirt,
perhaps posed just so by the eye romancing
the newlyweds. Hold it there, and hold her,
it must have said, so his arm wrapped around
her shoulder, drew her close, and her cheek
found his heartbeat. Thus the hint of a smile,
as if she'd found out the secret of the peonies
on her dress, dark green of the Pearl River,
silk on her thigh, under her hand on her lap,
fingers slightly parted, making tiny causeways
for water or leaves. She sits still, but she flows.

Perched on the arm of her chair, his pose hints
slight tension. Turn towards her some more,
the eye must have said, so he twisted from
the waist up and the old rose creased, folds
repeating the arc of his ribs, and he must have
thought, but she is none of these. Whatever other
Adams fancy, she is not of mine. She is her own
arc, a river. And so he turned some more
to meet her, his own cheek suddenly resting
on her crown, his eyes closing, listening
to her dream. How still now, these lovers.

Against the grey wall behind them, for all time
they affirm, here we are: still life, still love.


THE IMPERTINENCE OF DAFFODILS AND
BIRDS

She goes by the book,
she's scarily punctual,
she even makes appointments
for a cuddle, her arms trim,
sculpted for desire
like that Rodin arching her back
when she does stretches
at the gym — such exquisite
muscularity of the upper arm
rippling into shoulder
is no accident of gesture.

The gardener from the suburbs,
the au pair studying English
and the cook imported from India know
accidents happen only in other parts of the world.

Sometimes her spouse's eyes
stalk the ripple with
ode by ode that's never
written — there are accounts
to right, contracts to close
and words are not made flesh.
Tonight in Canberra, it's pillow talk,
her latest joust with the press,
his sticky deal with China,
and the bed dreams of Tieguanyin,
oolong blessed by the Goddess of Mercy.

Yesterday, the gardener trimmed the hedge,
the au pair did three sets of laundry
and the cook learned how to be merciful
to crabs — don't kill, just let them sleep in the freezer.

But the morning after, there are birds.
Only early August and there are birds
racketing on the hedge — or its remains?
She thinks, surely he cleaned up after.
Her spouse thinks, are those damned windows shut,
what useless double glazing. Downstairs,
a girl lights incense for Guanyin,
opens her little English dictionary
in search for the meaning
of glazing but finds only glaze:
cover, coat, finish.

The gardener finished tidying the driveway too.
O such delight — daffodils too early
among the weeds — O such grief — pulling them out
to recompose the order of the world.


AFTER REMING

Supertyphoon, Philippines
November 2006
Purple.

Unlike any that I've seen,
Mother says.

Behind an iron gate
beside an immense hole
on the ground,
but no house.

She pauses,
and I'm suddenly
beside the purple
behind the gate
in the hole
in the house,
led by the definite article,
thus definitively placed.

It is no accident,
this urge of composition,
as in the writing
of a poem
when I compose myself
into the loss of strangers
as if there was this hole,
this space reserved for me.

Around it,
the presuming poet builds:
it's the purple of bruises
after the boulders
the purple of the drowned
after the mudflow
the purple of death
after the storm conspired
with the surge from the Pacific
the lahar from the volcano
after the earth became
a whirlpool
that smelt of sulphur.
So I fill the hole,

I frame it,
lay out the scene,
line by line,
body by body
in that disappeared house:
a father, a mother, a daughter, a son
turning purple underground —

but I am halted,
as Mother resumes
her awe. A purple
hibiscus, a new bud
behind a gate beside a hole
that used to be a house.
Her whisper is deep,
unreachable.

Then she returns,
frames me in the evening light.
I doubt if you'd believe it,
you were not here.
Again she pauses and smiles,
But I'm glad you had a safe
trip from Australia.


THE LOST NOTEBOOK

He found it.
Ballpoint ink weeping
on the cover page
but still readable:
English Composition.

But inside
it's waterlogged,
unfinished. Only
the notebook knows
Nenita's final gift —

Reming, Reming
Shut your eye
Shut your mouth

An incantation
found in the hole
that used to be a house.

A poem
still composing itself
a week after the storm.

Like him now
walking round and round
the hole — composing limbs,
faces of his wife Gloria
and Roberto, fourteen
Nenita, twelve
like when he
composed himself
at work in LA,
composed his ear
locked to his iPhone

to the howl
of rain and wind
as he listened to
his daughter say, Ay, Papa —
before the line was cut.


CASSANDRA AFTER HAIYAN

For Cassandra Fate B. Merin, 10 years old

Your composition: a Christmas tree
with stick figures holding hands.
Your caption: Gusto ko sama-sama kaming pamilya.
(I wish we were together as a family.)
Drawn in crayons and labelled First:
first light after the storm
first sight after the dark.
Two-dimensional on Manila paper, a still
born from the frequency of storms.
But there are movements,
other dimensions.
What clarity of vision, Cassandra.

You round up your wish,
guide our eyes towards
its logic in the next frame:
stick figure named Papa
at the foot of a ladder raised
hinged to the wind
and at the top rung
a bucket unfurling a rope
tied to a foot vanishing
into the water labelled dagat, ocean.
How efficient: Papa, ladder, bucket, rope.

How simple your mechanics of salvation.

Then above his head,
another Christmas tree, now an arrow
guiding the eye to a house with two figures:
Bunsô0, youngest, and Mama.
Lest we forget: salvation is completed
in a house. But the eye unwittingly
moves to the next house.
Paaralan: School.
Inside, three figures also named,
lest we miss them: Áte, Sister.
Kúya, Brother. Áte, Sister.

What wisdom in testimony.

No child is safe without
a family a house a school.
Such is your eye for detail — the logic
of your first sight:
a Christmas tree with stick figures
holding hands — I wish we were together
as a family. We look at them
but do not feel the grip
of flesh, the stronghold
of a wish. It's just paper,
a child's drawing.

So who believes Cassandra?

Haiyan: landfall, 8 November 2013.
March 2016: more than a hundred
children still living
in transitional shelters,
the pledge of permanent housing
composed and re-composed
month after month,
storm after storm as
Cassandra turns her sight
away from the rationed crayons
and looks in the eye
another incoming landfall.


THE PERFECT ORCHID

To the women of the volcano

Is it the vanda,
waling-waling or cattleya
that's the perfect orchid?
Mother is in awe.
I follow her gaze:
such cool aristocrats
hanging way above
the soil, afraid
to descend.

But they descended
once, from the volcano
(livelihood of women
on its slopes)
to the stalls of women
at its foot.

Buy my orchids, Ma'am.

A year after Reming pushed
the ash, the boulders down,
they're back at their stalls:
Marlene, Gloria, Phoebe
who dug up their
buried houses.
Maricel who lost
her children
to the mudflow.

Look, a perfect orchid, Ma'am.

Mother checks it:
perfect petals, perfect heart
so still, so still
as if from a factory of silk flowers.
So, a reverent touch
to make sure it's real,
and the purchase is sealed.

I watch Marlene's hands
count the change.
Hands that dug up a house,
sure and survivor
perfect.

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Excerpted from Accidents of Composition by Merlinda Bobis. Copyright © 2017 Merlinda Bobis. Excerpted by permission of Spinifex Press Pty Ltd.
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