by Alan Gillis

Under cover
of the sycamore
wood anemone blooms.

The sycamore’s
seeds, wee samaras,
twizzle–twirl through the air.

You trace the wheel–
whirl of those nutsy
helicopters, their volute

fall from cotton–
dabbed skies to crash
into yellow violet and vetch.

I remember
you were laughing at
a chaffinch, or some bird

on our tartan
blanket, all hoppity
risking its neck for crumbs.

We were naming
clouds, imagining
them boats on the ocean

before the bomb
of time disfigured
us beyond almost all

recognition.
I remember you
cradling some creeping thing,

the sycamore’s
shade on your skin
like green–veined white butterflies.

Even now, picking
among the crumbs
left to us I would say,

though we’ll soon
be under soil, let no–
one else feel the under–

foot dew for you;
even now, I would say
a green world moves through

us in slow motion
among yellow violet,
vetch, wood anemone

under the ocean
under the eaves under
the chameleonic sycamore trees.

by Alan Gillis

Grumbulous midges would hover
still in a galaxy of minor rage
by the riverside, the river relaxed
from a distance but swift–raced,

burble–flowed in glut–streams of torrent
when I’d draw near to its peacock
tail of reflection, sauntering through
conifer shadow and butterstreaks

of light as if suspended in time, though
all swayed in motion, and now there’s no way
of nesting back in that bark–must and water–
light deep in the ferns, that rushed and slow flow.

by Douglas Dunn

Where Shug MacFarlane burned his midnight oil
In that cramped attic room of his, upstairs
From where his granny took ten years to die,
There’s now a roadside space without a house.
An apple tree remains, a pile of rubble,
And a thud on the eye to those who know what was.

Shug, though, was masterly at ‘were’ and ‘was’
Beside his lighted lamp in the smell of its oil.
In that windowed glow, he was ‘the boy upstairs’
At his study of history, of what had to die,
Empires and dynasties, each Royal house,
All of which came to destruction and rubble.

Where I live now is similar, but has no upstairs,
Unless my attic is. But I’ve no desire to die.
Where I live might not be much of a house,
But it suits me, though I foresee it as rubble,
I, who also am master of ‘were’ and ‘was’,
Though time has passed, and I need burn no oil.

In a pool of candlelight, I sit in my summerhouse
Surrounded by my own metaphorical rubble
And think of tenses, the need of ‘were’ and ‘was’,
That roadside space, the legendary ‘upstairs’
Where a boy pored over what was doomed to die
In the books he studied in the scent of oil.

Many have lived in the fragrance and light of oil.
Many more have died for it, and many more will die.
What better cause to die for than your own house ?
I don’t possess ‘upstairs’, but I’ll go there, and sift my rubble,
Sift through my histories of ‘were’ and ‘was’
In the nervous and attic darknesses of ‘upstairs’.

It’s not that I’m afraid of climbing ‘upstairs’
Holding an old–fashioned storm–lamp lighted by oil.
It’s just that I’m scared witless of ‘were’ and ‘was’,
Of ‘is’, and ‘will’ and ‘shall’, and forthcoming rubble.
I watch the oil–driven traffic, and know that my house
Feels vulnerable, and I don’t want anyone to die.

It will be by light of oil when I climb ‘upstairs’,
Though it won’t be to die, but to feel my house
As whole, not rubble, not as Shug’s is, or was.