Lisa Giacometti
has come to us to stay.
She‘s been here since Assissi‘s prince
commissioned her one day
and the narrow-streeted painters
clambered up rock and rail
to hang the curved and dark, half-starved
full profile on a nail.
Lisa Giacometti
knows not her narrowness
because it comes from years when flames
were ordinary dress.
She does not know she‘s virgin,
she does not know she‘s saint,
but when she walks the present stalks
the past in straits of paint.
Like a skittish horse, memory-shy, wings
singed, I draw near, approach,
approach, draw back, a white shape
in my eyes, approach, approach, touch, wheel,
echoes of music, draw back, instinct of pain,
approach, the white corners dance, the gate looms,
rears, I sink, sink, am over, from where the green
turf lies homely-waiting, the buds on the bulbs
wave, wave, am overt, into a land where white
ice and cold air blind my ears, an eternity of winter.
Under the waterlogs the beavers propel themselves,
seriously smiling, in the dark red water, building,
gnawing, slap-slap their tails, mud, fall, dank
construction, homes at home in the river, warm,
impenetrable, woodwoven fur, calm, dark ears under the water.
The grass
and the elephant ears. . .
One could do worse than still to hear
the rhubarb saying, wild furred years –
the nights, the sun, growth and its gear.
The grass, and the elephant ears,
home six years to the south of here –
could do worse, and time interferes
