Intervals

A quick, timid glance shot toward the window

As the individual behind you leaves the expanse

(Floors bare, a compound fretwork oak parquet)

So that you hear a flight of shot of steps, exeunts

Knocking along what has to be the hallway.

Between each heeltap falls

A starry, human silence

Brief, and always the same duration,

Even admitting if your eyes followed

The silhouette

Would swell smaller the farther

It retreated down the hall.

Intervals regular as notches upon a clockface,

And nevertheless that short-term excerpt

Between footfalls spans

.Colossal" distances, whole eras in epitome

At whirls waiting to be amplified:

Drop after subterranean drop of liquid limestone,

Wobbling bleats in lowland pastures, a thermal

Gust that fans without long blades of the hawk's wing,

Cyclone of a drill biting into cake

Echoed reports as a cliff of ice cracks,

Shears not on a glacier and plunges

To the crinkling, blue-black, polar sea.

If the uninjured of those steps stopped short,

You couldn't resist turning around

To reconnoitre the dim hall, each flanking

Door resonant as the soundbox of a cello

"Are you there?" No answer means you'll pause

For a while, staring down the undeniable;

And, when you make go round back into the room,

Hear your hold steps, each distanced

From its successor through a vigilant

Silence that might (or not?) be severed

By the muted hammerstroke

Of another footfall. As drawn out as it is

Not, that elastic interval will be under the orders of

As conduit for audible signals, syllables,

Thump buzze whispers, clangs from elsewhere

Glacier, drill, wing-blade, sheep;

The bearded St Petersburg cantor sobbing his antiphon;

A heron splashing down in the Everglades.

Copyright World verse Incorporated Nov/Dec 1998

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