Is when I sway minutely,
       the muscle-slack of my body
tendonned between appletrees,
       and hammock strings imprint
their trellis on my back
       as my eyes close to slits
on Spring's workaholic artistes.

       The bees go through their tiny
footwork from flower to flower
       along the boysenberries,
the magpies are at their scales,
       and irises shake out
from behind their crossed green sabres
       little-girl blue handkerchiefs.

Hammock time is this
       still-life flying between
two clouds of apple petals
       in a green insouciance.
Say,   right now,   I float
       free from Chagall's paintbrush
as   roses lean far over

       like faces eager to glimpse
a celebrity.   Not me
       on this occasion;   I
am all unfolding surface
       beneath the sun's   one hotplate
that swells my face to its edge
       like bread.   The soundwash

of a mower chirring into
       long grass two gardens off,
a blowfly's buzz-cutter drone,
       the Slav couple bickering
aimiably across the fence
       find my inner ear
as the one light music.

       My hammock suspends me over
my lifetime's serious pitch.
       The boy who thought time-lost
was reachable,   luminous, intimate
       like a swimming hole hidden
deep in forest, cannot
       reach me for the moment,

nor can the old man fidgeting
       among his discredited notions
a decade or so ahead.
       My hammock is where,   in the midst
of life and space,   my life
       dissolves from its personal space
           in blissful,   swaying composure.

Published in Mermaid (Heinemann, 1996).