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In your generous hours
In your generous hours - Richard Price
In your generous hours
In the plantation of focus-grouped trees, allow the pine-marten,
the bumbling mourning simple capercaillie,
the cross-bill’s glip-glip,
allow the lips, the licks
of sea-lochs,
the dribbling pouts of dams,
allow the crime
of the bramble, the nettle’s spite,
give the light some latitude, snagging in your lungs
(the coughers have coffers, the kissed their kist),
allow to exist
the ledge, as a place of flowers,
allow, in your generous hours, by the
substantiated cities,
the suburbs, their off-the-hanger song,
their greed to belong, to pretend to the lens and breath of the country,
be friendly
in dialects of body language telepathy,
assume trust
with credulous fish, with defactoried cattle,
allow a little attar at the altar,
stay confidential with your future
to the limits of scanners
(wipe the screen’s bleary plate),
you better not be late
for enjoying the making of things –
make things
(includes silence –
)
you have a licence to treasure affection in the diving chamber,
to welcome, partner, from our recovery slumber,
our plural known as ‘lovers’,
to discover
the places that happened to grow you up in,
the schools and the schemes,
the smokes and the smacks,
oh, you better relax,
you’re attached to the universe
by the tenderest of chances:
make allowances.
Allow me.
from Lucky Day (Carcanet, 2005), © Richard Price 2005, used by permission of the author and the publisher