'Silkie' by John Burnside
A few hours after publishing my last post - a poem by John Burnside the Saturday postman brings me the new 'London Review of Books' - and naturally there are two brand new poems by John. Both are very good; this is the most striking, returning as if by compulsion to the notion of the anima, 'the eternal feminine'; its plasticity and protean nature in the affairs of poets - and men.
SILKIE
At midnight when I rise,
insomniac,
and go down to the kitchen, for a glass
of water
(bars of moonlight
in the blinds, the wall clock
halted months ago,
at 7.10)
I know that, by the force of some
new geography
that I have yet to learn,
a woman will be standing at the sink,
gutting a bowl of codfish, the broken scales
stick on her fingers, her eyes
a blue, in this light,
that no one has seen before;
and this is where the cruelty begins,
in cleverness and lust and frayed desire,
not for this creature, who runs
from the ache of the sea,
then fritters away the moment I touch her hand,
but for someone to come, in the lists of the unforeseen,
who slips off her skin
to inherit a lifetime of gospel.
This is all the most familiar territory for Robert Graves in the search for his 'White Goddess'. In 'A Dream of Frances Speedwell' the woman has moved from the sink to the bedroom and the action appears to move forward, but guess what? she still has the same coloured eyes.
A DREAM OF FRANCES SPEEDWELL
I fell in love at my first evening party
You were tall and fair, just seventeen perhaps
talking to my two sisters. I kept silent
and never since have loved a tall fair girl,
until last night in the small windy hours
When, floating up an unfamiliar staircase
And into someone's bedroom there I found her
Posted beside the window in half light
Wearing that same white dress with lacy sleeves.
She beckoned, I cam closer. We embraced
Inseparably until the dream faded,
Her eyes shone clear and blue..
Who was it, though, impersonated you?
SILKIE
At midnight when I rise,
insomniac,
and go down to the kitchen, for a glass
of water
(bars of moonlight
in the blinds, the wall clock
halted months ago,
at 7.10)
I know that, by the force of some
new geography
that I have yet to learn,
a woman will be standing at the sink,
gutting a bowl of codfish, the broken scales
stick on her fingers, her eyes
a blue, in this light,
that no one has seen before;
and this is where the cruelty begins,
in cleverness and lust and frayed desire,
not for this creature, who runs
from the ache of the sea,
then fritters away the moment I touch her hand,
but for someone to come, in the lists of the unforeseen,
who slips off her skin
to inherit a lifetime of gospel.
This is all the most familiar territory for Robert Graves in the search for his 'White Goddess'. In 'A Dream of Frances Speedwell' the woman has moved from the sink to the bedroom and the action appears to move forward, but guess what? she still has the same coloured eyes.
A DREAM OF FRANCES SPEEDWELL
I fell in love at my first evening party
You were tall and fair, just seventeen perhaps
talking to my two sisters. I kept silent
and never since have loved a tall fair girl,
until last night in the small windy hours
When, floating up an unfamiliar staircase
And into someone's bedroom there I found her
Posted beside the window in half light
Wearing that same white dress with lacy sleeves.
She beckoned, I cam closer. We embraced
Inseparably until the dream faded,
Her eyes shone clear and blue..
Who was it, though, impersonated you?
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| Anima, Animus - found on Pinterest |
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