THE BLIND DOG

So much of the real
is beyond our notice –
creamy blossoms hide thorns

__the blind dog blinks
__in front of a rabbit

light burrows through clouds
shadowing
a month of sundays

__twelve friends for lunch
__hymns unpractised

fingers slow in the cold
the band greets the new ones –
work makes us free

__the key’s all wrong
__steel lines fade into fog

on the map it says
all this, definitely,
is somewhere over there

__cups and thermos
__rainbows come with rain

the tumour takes fast –
moments without end, beginning
are enough

__side by side, shoes,
__the smoothed sheet

from an empty room
dying flowers
call her name

__hyssop, caraway, chocolate mint
__sharp in the bed of joy

a dry veiny eye
of lunar honesty
dangles a web

__puddles in cut fields
__reflect the hasty sky

flashes on the toll road
to Chiiori –
low sun, shuttered

__fried eggs for supper
__it’s all that’s left

Aga fuel
climbs the hill
ready for starved lambs

__skinning corpses for the lies
__that give life to the living

shunned by the wise
the ragwort
flaunts its yellow head

__in the chilly bathroom
__my face is washed and dried.

a nijuuin renga in Summer
Swaledale Festival, Nappa Scar
June 5, 2005

Participants

Alec Finlay (master)
Alex Hodby
Felicity Manning
Beth Rowson
Elisabeth Sutherland
Tom Richardson
Roger Selby