JOHN HOLLOWAY

Choice

43

Song of bronze gong. One enormous note, shattering

vacuous day. World of great sound detonating silence. Scattering

reverberatively

a clangour, a clang flung from skyline to skyline, the vacuous

filled to brim in an instant. Brittle tang of metal shuddering

spectacularly.

Gong-days . . . whisper-days. You choose. My choice is made.

uphill where the small birds surreptitiously

pass the time in music

From all sforzandos I walk, without show,

without rush; and a dry breeze

meticulously; and without whispers in the grass as we speak, like here and now,

rush; or show.

Grandfather

That is the sound of his clock.

A ponderous escapement. Time Nudging against the scribed

Over the ripe moon

With its circle of children. Time Like a mower: garnering in

The hours and the flowers

More thud than tick. Knelling the speech of

Filigree hands

Of the dial's floriations: the main flower

44 Critical Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1

In this large house, now Only for one, as days pass

In silence, or maybe sedate Speech with a guest, and perfect

That is his ponderous tread

Down the steps to the scrupulous Garden: garnering in

The flowers; and the hours.

If bland cooking.

Now, as he goes, scissors in hand,

ELIZABETH JENNINGS

Will it be so?

Will it be so again,

Coming as cool and sweet as summer rain And better still at night?

That fine and natural impulse of delight

I think we were each other's good refrain.

Why did you draw away

You have made night all day And every reciprocity of joy

Is broken into gravity from play.

I say I will forgive. Can it be so? I cannot yet forget,

You've taught me I could live In Edens where buffoons and clowns have met.

I cannot find the summer a relief,

And take my trust and treat it like a toy?

Or Autumn's stately tread. Seasons are mixed and time is back as king

Who visits stealthily the worthy dead. Once every ghost could sing,

Now men chant only mourning hymns instead.