Dialogue with Louise Glück (5)

The delight is the surprise
                                                               L.G.
 
Do you really believe the gifts a deity may bestow –
the field of daisies, lambs turning silver in the twilight –
 
are – transactional? Anticipating some return
on investment: appeasement, perhaps, or praise . . . .
 
Yes, I know the old gods needed sacrifice,
the reassurance of substance, oxen, a pair of doves –
 
that weight. Even words were concrete then, material
as the daisies, or the asters and wild chicory stirring
 
across an August hillside, pale blue, deep blue.
A blessing, a birthright might be stolen. Think of Esau.
 
But their children’s children live in a different heaven.
They travel light, without encumbrance, their gifts
 
the free outpouring of a moment – the drawing
a small lad runs to give you of the sun and a green car.
 

Margaret Wilmot

published in South, ⌗70, November, 2024

 
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Just another country

It’s a grey mild day like so many in childhood
we spent on a white beach across the world
here the hedge clippings lie unswept
there are windfalls on the grass but I’ve come upstairs
with coffee before the next thing and maybe because
I’m thinking of Mother’s favourite place on earth
I notice the bureau drawers unevenly closed
hear her mildly exasperated sigh as she crosses
my childhood room to push them shut and think
how much time I spend with the dead now
how near they feel like friends who live elsewhere
as if death is just another country I might
summon up the energy to visit again
 

Margaret Wilmot

published in Poetry Salzburg ⌗43, Winter 25/26

 
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In the wake of Nelly Sach’s enigmas

                         This is an excursion to a place
                         where the shadows sign other contracts
 
They write in invisible ink
as wind combs the dune grass
 
you sit turned away from me
 
turned towards the ocean of childhood
 
which is not the same thing as absence
 
in the sepia-green conversation of dreams
neither towards nor away, moving
 
the wall of ashes of small import
 
 
                         *
 
 
                         Rich I am as the ocean
 
Rich she is surely
as the ocean outrushing in her blood –
 
blood which pours itself through hyssop
 
pours and pours
 
Torchlit processions of ancestors still fleeing
 
They swarm up out of the kitchen table
cast wavering shadows across the page
 
drink and flee again
 
leave muddy prints
 
 
                         *
 
 
                         All the words have crashed down
 
The vowels howl
that’s what they do left to themselves
 
what I can’t do
 
my mouth furs
 
they were the bars which held me
safe on my bier and now
 
I fall and fall
into the chasm of a universe
 
beyond sound
 
 
                         *
 
 
                         In the bewitched wood . . .
                         glowing enigmas gaze at each other
 
Rough beasts with the teeth of the dead
wings of the dead
 
they suck the forest air
 
stare off branches block paths
 
lifeless discovery of a beyond
 
From the white starched sheets of
a hospital bed I make a pact
 
or not  
 
                         *
 
 
                         the tongue exercises
                      at the end of the organ of sound
 
Shape a letter up
out of the hole of sound
 
build a letter
 
carve the silence into breath
letter on letter
 
away from
 

Margaret Wilmot

published in Stand Vol 23 (3), Autumn 2025

 
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What is there

The dark at the edge of the box of light is a relief.
We don’t have to look, can focus on John Hurt
as he peers side-stage into what isn’t there before
seating himself beneath the yellow bulb.
 
I think of the bundle of rags in her chair
who was my neighbour, the night she spent
failing to get a leg into the second knicker-hole.
She gave up at 6 a.m. I’d shot my bolt.
 
What tape would she choose? Krapp’s banana droops.
He rewinds. Listens. Despite the gall
of life, the crap under the yellow bulb, there are
moments – they move him, move in him still.
 

Margaret Wilmot

published in The Frogmore Papers ⌗108, Autumn 2026

 
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