ArchIVe
shop
contact
Henry Woodland
Alysa Liu Poem Alone just south of Margaret River
I fall asleep reading ‘The Skaters’,
Right at the part where Ashbery describes
How the spring builds a tolerable affair
Of brushwood, noiselessly pouring,
And the sea is felt behind the oak wands.
I skated once, near Oslo; I was maybe
Seventeen, and felt even then that humans
Would never be forgiven for attempting
To walk on water. There are other things
Also—fission, Piers Morgan—but this
Must number high amongst our sins,
Mimicking a miracle and ornamenting its form.
I wake up alarmed. My neck aches
And the sun is beating on my face.
All of Ashbery feels like a weight upon my chest.
Down the hill I see skaters dipping fluidly
Between the vines, making Kandinsky-shapes,
Cutting scrims of white into contrite letters
Then twisting them like secrets. These gyrations
Appear harmonious from a distance, like sea
Or the tops of trees, and only when one gets
Closer is its sadness small and appreciable.
At this point I come to a few new conclusions:
Congratulations are not due for shifting limbs
Or tilting syllables so as to stave knowledge
Of execution. Every Idol is a false Idol, every
Moment of beauty a moment for which you will
Have to beg forgiveness. Each gold medal is a coin
Over your eyes. Yet still I imagine all number
Of pathetic things: I am receiving the Lilly Prize;
My mother is alive to see it. Later, lightly white
And unfurling like gold leaf at the periphery
Of the pool, I watch a whole aberration of stars
And beneath constellations of skaters in no real
Order, finished now; now bowing, speaking softly,
Suggesting how makeshift haloes might
Be applied to their darkening hair.
back