{"id":946,"date":"2010-12-31T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=946"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:14:53","slug":"the-seventh-day-of-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-seventh-day-of-christmas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seventh Day of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Cold Dimensions<\/span>

<\/font><\/font>I study the lives on a leaf: the little sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions<\/font>
 <\/span>

<\/span>A strange way to see.<\/span>
A stranger\u2019s way. <\/span>
Her garden is an exhibition<\/span>
with lit rooms, masterpieces,<\/span>
and her rooms are parterres;<\/span>
the shape and size of their levels<\/span>
calculated to the soil-grain,<\/span>
the spaces between shadowed<\/span>
gnomons; those data-breaks<\/span>
called seasons hold<\/span>
hallmarks and prints:<\/span>
temperature\u2019s drafting. <\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
She explains that there are masters<\/span>
as there are spadesmen,<\/span>
that both are speculators;<\/span>
that the gruff grafters<\/span>
who break soil, sieve weed, <\/span>
are the salts of creation. Yet <\/span>
that is not the actual work\u2014<\/span>
this arises by intangible<\/span>
skill, by flaw, flawed<\/span>
experiment even, and her own<\/span>
interventions. The stranger:<\/span>
she must always be welcomed.<\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
These then are her gardens.<\/span>
Her four-shadowed sundial.<\/span>
Scent of snow on the breeze.<\/span>
Sun pawing on your shoulders.<\/span>
Ripe buds quelling colour<\/span>
before they broadcast leaf<\/span>
as if to foreshadow winter.<\/span>
A strange, constant season.<\/span>
The moon sails in a wrack<\/span>
of steady cirrus and sleet.<\/span>
On the lip of that world<\/span>
she turns to take your hand.<\/span>


 <\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
Now, from her black soil,<\/span>
storytellers and artists<\/span>
begin to erupt: cramoisy<\/span>
abstracts from peony and poppy,<\/span>
dripped inks of algae<\/span>
igniting on a dew-pond;<\/span>
butterfly narratives<\/span>
of flight, where they settle<\/span>
to sip, unfold wings<\/span>
on illuminated parchment<\/span>
on a comparison of palettes, <\/span>
on the wherewithal of pattern.<\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
There, come her rich fables<\/span>
in which lacewings balance<\/span>
against ground-level winds:<\/span>
the viewless khamsins,<\/span>
zephyrs and haramattans, <\/span>
that sway towers of digitalis;<\/span>
and in the foxglove mouths<\/span>
humble-bees move<\/span>
edgily at their easels; <\/span>
dragonflies, hummingbirds<\/span>
freeze and spurt above oils,<\/span>
histrionic, in counter-worlds.<\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
Now are her apprentices<\/span>
to works in progress:<\/span>
under the pearl pond\u2019s surface<\/span>
bent brushes of fly larvae <\/span>
on canvas below a lily\u2019s pad:<\/span>
two poles of a planet –<\/span>
one in loom, one in radiance –<\/span>
half-conceiving of the other;<\/span>
a toad hunkers over them,<\/span>
a levitating Brahma,<\/span>
lax tutor of the green school<\/span>
of watercolour, of water.<\/span>


 <\/span>
 <\/span>
Here, her miniatures move<\/span>
into sight: the eye delves<\/span>
hinterlands where the unmanaged <\/span>
survive under a slew of brick<\/span>
lobbed by the first gardener.<\/span>
Lever the frore mortar<\/span>
to parallel cities of red ants, <\/span>
woodlice, gaunt generations<\/span>
of black frost and feelers,<\/span>
unnoticed deaths, languages,<\/span>
births, ice architecture.<\/span>
Their great roof falls back.<\/span>
 <\/span>
 <\/span>
At length, among the etching<\/span>
blades of spear and couch<\/span>
grass, the factions of colour<\/span>
freeze to clear light.<\/span>
A solitary, strange season.<\/span>
In her lit outline<\/span>
the garden shows a wall,<\/span>
then a gate to the space<\/span>
where she will let you<\/span>
stand apart from yourself.<\/span>
At the lip of the world.<\/span>
She releases your hand.<\/span>
 <\/p>\n


<\/span>
*David Morley<\/span><\/a> \u2019s new book is <\/span>Enchantment<\/span>. His poetry has won 14 awards. 'In Cold Dimensions' is from his previous collection The Invisible Kings<\/span> (a PBS Recommendation.) His \u2018writing challenges\u2019 podcasts are among the most popular literature downloads on iTunes worldwide. He writes for The Guardian and Poetry Review. <\/span>

 <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Cold DimensionsI study the lives on a leaf: the little sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions A strange way to see.A stranger\u2019s way. Her garden is an exhibitionwith lit rooms, masterpieces,and her rooms are parterres;the shape and size of their levelscalculated to the soil-grain,the spaces between shadowedgnomons; those data-breakscalled seasons holdhallmarks and prints:temperature\u2019s drafting.   She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-twelve-days-of-christmas-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23918,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/23918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}