Solstice ‘09
Upon leaving the Chinese garden
where a hundred paper lanterns
in magical trains
of flickering light
floated lazily across
the dark waters,
you stopped to look
up and count the stars, ten
through the cloud-break,
marvellous,
bringing an even greater
delight, not to compare
but to compound
the pleasure of the evening.
Then, joking,
you sought gallantry,
a coat thrown across a pool
of rainwater on the street.
It wasn’t royal treatment
you were hoping for,
but rather, ‘love . . . adoration . . .
passion . . . and lust . . .’
It’s what you said,
and meant I suppose,
having once followed
those same stars north
from Louisiana to Alaska
in your new ‘57 Olds,
unmapped roads ahead,
and a child of six months
growing in the backseat.
* Alan Girling
used to write fiction but these days it's mainly poetry. He suspects
his old stories were really poems in disguise. Examples of both can be
found in Blue Skies, Hobart, The MacGuffin, Smokelong, Six Sentences, Ken*again, and ink sweat and tears among others.