Poems by DAMIAN GRANT 33

Zahir One of Borges’ tales relates the story of a man who sees the Zahir; the Zahir which reappears under a different form in each age, as a person or thing that has the terrible quality of being unforgettable.

Tiger that drove the Indian artist mad, leaping from palace walls, still clambering over the map of the world he painted in the cell that killed him; copper astrolabe the king caused to be buried in the sea ‘lest men forget the universe’ ; blind man they stoned in Surakarta . . . the Zahir takes, the unforgettable being or object that locks on the mind and makes the prisoner mad.

a vein in marble and a common coin ; the bottom of a well.

I must add you: lithe as a tiger on the world I draw within my cell, or those I study there; as blind and blue as blind man, marble; deep as any well; the commonest coin of all - the unforgettable being or object that is locked before me in a vice of light.

all are forms

Tradition adds

No smoke without fire Or so they say. But the long smouldering through several summers of the grasses that have grown about us, and the bitter smoke that drifts erratically across the rooms I see you move through with my smarting eyes, have never had a flame to warm them by.

34 Critical Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 4

Laburnum Now, when the laburnum breaks its light tassels into the yellowing air, I remember the yellow night two summers back (it will be three, then four), when we stood talking a long time at a long window underneath a tall laburnum full of shining light, and love swung simply in its flowers . . , Later, as dways, the yellow glory lay along the city gutters, blocked up drains.

Where does the new hope come from now, that dares to hang those simple tassels out again?

Utica After the wars, and Cato’s suicide, it was the sea deserted Utica; retreating across the shallow bay to leave the city stranded. The inhabitants departed elsewhere, and abandoned it to the slow work of time; until today the Roman capital of Africa lies buried under a hill.

Along one edge a few streets have been excavated; paved in slab stone, these lead regularly from what was the sea-front to the waist-high walls of half a dozen houses. Here the rooms are square and spacious; some of them contain half-moon mosaic basins set with all the fish the sea afforded.

are several heavy Punic tombs; in one, the bones of a young girl have been stirred from long forgetfulness.

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Poems 35

But Utica is not all ruin. In the courtyard of the largest house, three shapely cypresses stand on their slow roots, burning steadily a dark green flame of life ; geraniums as red and real as blood break out between the shattered marble tiles; and sudden, light sand-coloured lizards switch like nerves among so much dead flesh of stone.

I brought you here with me, and as we walked through the small, flowered ruins, quite alone, we felt this new life stir between us, send the buried blood along each leaf of nerve ; and when I kissed you in the brilliant light among those standing stones it was as if the whole world came to life again: for we should not have wondered, then, to hear a young girl singing at the sea’s edge, or to see the stone fish swim in their mosaic pools.

One afternoon

Star poem There are stars standing in our sky whose light died years ago, light years ago. A sun erupted unimaginably in some depth of space, starting a darkness that echoes out there in the ultimate cold and drives towards us ; but the light shines still from another time outside our knowledge, and will, always, to the end of this world.

You too have died to me; whatever you once were or seemed to be has flared and ceased in those far skies where you stayed separate. But love’s light years are not spent utterly. Somewhere the simple truth of it still holds, still holds. You are my bright, extinguished star.