Glimps

This is a poem about yesterday. A dashing-about-being-useful sort of day. Never quite seeing anything properly....

Has it started yet? No, not yet.

GLIMPS

Has it started now? Yes. That was the title. It's called GLIMPS

Weird title!

It's supposed to be about glimpses, so I called it GLIMPS.

Ah! Clever.

Right then, this is it...

GLIMPS.

Part one - The Sea

At the end of Wattle Street
Between tall yellow houses
A glimpse of the sea
One inch wide.
White sea horses
Rolling north
On bluegreen rollers.

Part two - The Eye

How does it look, my eye?
Alright, your eye,
But there is blood
On your face.

Part three - The Knife

Behind a screen door
At the end of a path
Through a garden
My daughter,
In need of a knife.

Part four - The Rainbow

On Greenhill Road
A man with a camera
Trying to capture
A rainbow
In a white sky.

A Negative Gardener

Now it is cool, Pliny is catching up on some gardening. She is in the front garden, gardening the only way she knows how.

Pliny gardens with a dinner knife. It is a very short dinner knife, now. She uses it to gouge out the grass that grows vigorously between the pavers at the edge of the almost dead lawn. She has long since stopped thinking that this is a paradox. She just gets down to it, and pulls out grass with the dinner knife, which is short due to the ravages of friction.

There is an art to ripping out grass from between pavers. Pliny has not mastered it yet. She uses her thumb delicately enough, and knows how to grasp just the right amount of grass between it and the flat blade of the knife so that when she yanks it she won't fall over backwards. But she doesn't know how to deal with the flat cushion of tiny grass roots that remain to sprout another day. Nor can she protect her knuckles from the fate that has befallen the knife.

Her back hurts. I'm a negative gardener, thinks Pliny.

What is XO Sauce?

Pliny the Elder: You have received some exotic gifts. What is XO Sauce?

Me: It's a spicy fish sauce very popular in Hong Kong. It's called XO after 'Extra Old' Cognac, which is not one of the ingredients, but makes it sound posh.

Pliny the Elder: What are the ingredients of this delicacy?

Me: According to Li Feng's hand written label: Scallops, Prawns, Mushrooms, Some Garlics, Onions, Chillis, Vegetable Oil and Salt a Little.

Pliny the Elder: Very nice. I used to like fish sauce back in the old days. We Romans made a good one with anchovies, herbs and salt, called garum. We used to put it on everything. It smelled terrible but we couldn't get enough of it. We used it as an unguent for wounds as well.....

Me: Really, how fascinating. Would you like a Green Tea biscuit?

Pliny the Elder: Well, only if you're going to open the XO Sauce. Have you got a knife?