Midsummer by Derek Walcott

Author:Derek Walcott
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780571264667
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-04-29T05:00:00+00:00

XXXV

Mud. Clods. The sucking heel of the rain-flinger.

Sometimes the gusts of rain veered like the sails

of dragon-beaked vessels dipping to Avalon

and mist. For hours, driving along

the skittering ridges of Wales, we carried the figure

of Langland’s Plowman on the rain-seeded glass,

matching the tires with his striding heels,

while splintered puddles dripped from the roadside grass.

Once, in the drizzle, a crouched, clay-covered ghost

rose in his pivot, and the turning disk of the fields

with their ploughed stanzas sang of a freshness lost.

Villages began. We had crossed into England—

the fields, not their names, were the same. We found a caff,

parked in a thin drizzle, then crammed into a pew

of red leatherette. Outside, with thumb and finger,

a careful sun was picking the lint from things.

The sun brightened like a sign, the world was new

while the cairns, the castled hillocks, the stony kings

were scabbarded in sleep, yet what made me think

that the crash of chivalry in a kitchen sink

was my own dispossession? I could sense, from calf

to flinging wrist, my veins ache in a knot.

There was mist on the window. I rubbed it and looked out

at the helmets of wet cars in the parking lot.

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