FIONA SAMPSON

 
A Walk to the Paradise Garden

…loading galaxies of flowers / like night sky’s sprawling fire
– Martin Harrison

I
When you and Martin talk about a stone-fruit orchard,
rare Coeur de boeuf tree-stock,
you fill the dusty café terrace near St Sulpice
with persimmon, lavender in pots,
bramble, Japanese pear,
even those flowering plums
which appear as galaxies in one of his poems.

So – you can rustle these up, easy as stirring your coffee…
That must change something. Not friendship
perhaps, but the way language
cuts between gardens
on opposite sides of the globe –

Vale of the White Horse, Hunter Valley,
the names bring you home
as they plant themselves round you.


II
…All summer, waiting for summer,
you’re pale, as if you lived
in a mirror’s silvered interior.

It’s the Jet Stream. Expect worse to come.

Well… You want an out-size sun
to open overhead, as a sign
of how things could work out,
your neighbours’ voices
ringing through fine afternoons,
skylarks springing
their high spirals.

Instead, rain soaks a lawn
crowded by roses, daisies, thyme –
where someone’s laid a clutch of pebbles
on a bench under the ash.
So perhaps the grass isn’t empty, but thronged
with ghosts strolling hand-in-hand,
the end of the world
reflected in each others’ eyes.

Strange, that the New Life might end
with a garden, provincial measure you started from

(remember the wooden summerhouse,
that robin, quick with instinct
at your feet…)

the suburban paradise
locking its gates around you
just as you feared,
on afternoons that smell of grass and rot –
the life between slipping away
and you, childish, among light and shadow
in the silent garden.

Lavinia Zainea

Plimbare catre Gradina Raiului

…loading galaxies of flowers / like night sky’s sprawling fire
– Martin Harrison

I
Cand tu si Martin vorbiai despre o livada cu fructe de piatra,
un rar depozit de copaci Coeur de boeuf
umpleti cafeneaua prafuita de langa St. Sulpice
cu curmali, levantica in ghivece,
rugi de mure, pere japoneze,
chiar cu acei pruni in floare
pe care ii transforma in galaxii in una dintre poeziile lui.

Deci- poti ii faci sa fosneasca, la fel de usor ca amestecatul cafelei…
Asta trebuie sa schimbe ceva. Nu prietenia
poate, ci felul in care limbajul
taie printre gradini
din parti opuse ale globului-

Valea Calului Alb, Valea Vanatorului,
numele te poarta spre casa
pe masura ce se planteaza in jurul tau.


II

…Toata vara, asteptand vara,
esti palid, ca si cum ai trai
in interiorul argintat al unei oglinzi.

E un curent de aer puternic. Situaþia se va inrautati.

Ei bine…Vrei un soare imens
care sa-ti lumineze calea, ca un semn
al lucrurilor care s-ar putea intampla,
cu vocile vecinilor
rasunand in amiezile placute
si ciocarliile topaind in
spirale mari.

De fapt, ploaia uda peluza
plina de trandafiri, margarete, cimbru-
unde cineva a pus un pumn de pietricele
pe o banca sub frasin.
Deci poate ca iarba nu e goala, ci întesata
de fantasme plimbandu-se de mana,
in ai caror ochi se reflecta sfarsitul lumii.

Cat de ciudat ca Noua Viata s-ar putea termina
cu o gradina, masura provinciala pe care ai plamadit-o din

(adu-ti aminte de casa de vara din lemn,
de acel prihor, manat de instinct
la picioarele tale…)

paradisul suburban
care te intemnita
cum te temeai,
in amiezele cu miros de iarba si putregai-
viata dintre ele vestejindu-se
si tu, copilaros, între lumina si intuneric
in gradina tacuta.