GROWTH WAITS FOR ITS MOMENT

Lie flat on your back
among lambs, clouds
let gravity take a rest

__your thoughts in boxes
__with two sides missing

swifts fly across
an open face
moon draws the water in

__nothing more to do
__the kids run their baths

jackets left in piles
just like OBI WAN –
boots by the fire

__tapping every log
__to set the insects free

all the anthropologists
sit and stare
into their lunch bowls

__if I died tomorrow
__I’d want you to know this

a balloon can be tight
and yet float
colours over a town

__jackdaws crack and puzzle
__the steeple points at nothing

stilled and storied
leaded light
caught in the rafters

__shh . . . sex is happening
__in each corner of the hay

a grapefruit
and a star
in Tom's song

__shift sun
__into reason

100 turning windmills
make their way
into the sea

__use scissors carefully
__cut round the edges

a hare pops out
of Hotchberry Brow
flaps like a hinge

__must you always come back
__the way you came?

one of her
new white roses
is red

__I want to call you clown
__I want to call you brother.

a nijuuin renga in Summer
June 11, 2005, Cockermouth

participants

Alec Finlay (master)
Linda France (master)
Debbie Taylor Davies
Helen Fenton
Ryan Griffiths
Jeremy Over
Marita Over
Rebecca Mellor
Jette Riedlin