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wonder

SUCH PEOPLE TO LOVE

As I leaf through the three albums you have made –

mostly of your photographs plus some

of my poems – one book for each of her years –

I realise we are ready for the fourth

and how every day of every

year has been as full as a lifetime.

 

You have only caught her best side – quite right

too – as she grows up into her self: none

of those heartbreaking, fearful tantrums where

her world becomes chaotic, senseless with

her sense of injustice in a world of giants.

 

I almost write ‘the miracle of her growth’,

though godless – ‘wonder’ will do just as well.

And I wonder what she will be at fourteen,

thirty four, fifty four…and what her world

will be like. Ah, immortal longings –

to try to conjure the future as if

I might be there! Who would have thought when I was

four that hearts would be transplanted, glaciers

melt – and I would have such people to love?

 

 

 

ON BECOMING TWO

The party guests arrange themselves for a group

photo with the birthday girl at the centre.

She watches us position ourselves – some

on the sofa, some on the floor in front,

some standing behind – then runs to the tripod

and presses the remote… After the guests have gone,

she draws her first spiral – clockwise, perfect,

a spira mirabilis – then carries

her Pooh balloon around the room, requesting

Postman Pat… She hides under her special

blanket. ‘Where is she?’ we chorus. ‘Has she

gone to the river to feed the ducks?’ ‘No,’

she answers, muffled but unequivocal…

Next day, she goes to see the butterflies

in The Glasshouse – each larger than her hands splayed…

Later, she watches a pair of blue tits

begin to occupy the nesting box

on the sycamore though cold winds blow

and there are ten more weeks of winter…

Wonder jostles wonder. Nothing is mundane…

How robust she has become! How delicate still!

 

 

 

 

LA CATHÉDRAL SAINTE-MARIE D’AUCH

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read441 views

This is the first church she has ever entered.

She likes the thudding noise of her pink trainers

with the flashing heels on the limestone flags.

She stops and points. She has seen, in subtle,

Renaissance stained glass, Jonah emerging

from his whale. She sees a kneeler, lies down

before Adam and Eve and pretends to sleep.

The cathedral was on the pilgrim route

to Santiago Di Compostella

so is a place of consummate skill,

vaulting beauty and Christian arcana –

a wonder no greater or lesser

than Iggle Piggle or The Gruffalo.

Keep the faith, little one, keep the faith!

 

 

 

 

A COMMONPLACE

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments1 min read317 views

The succulent, bright green shoots of early spring;

the blackthorn – on distant hedgerows like

sporadic late frost or, close to, pearls

of scattered barley; the tiny goldcrest

with its mighty voice – see see see, see see see:

presage the summer’s rich beneficence.

 

This is her second spring. She points with wonder

and joy at a sudden breeze that shakes

the cherry tree, disturbs its white petals

against the bluest sky, the brightest sun.

She is walking now – or, rather, teetering

fearlessly through her own universe

of daily marvels: dead leaves, small children.

Adept for quite a time in her own

lingua franca soon she will learn ours,

a mundane, quotidian miracle.

 

AT JODRELL BANK

David Selzer By David Selzer2 Comments1 min read467 views

The radio telescope trundles on rails

in a landscape of dairy cows and ponds,

tuning into the dispersing cosmos.

The universe is replete with sound. We

fill it with meaning and impedimenta.

Star sailors embark on metaphor

and intricate engines. We record

the energy of suns dead longer than

dinosaurs. We listen to stars yet

tolerate hunger – and we stare still

into the black wonder of starry nights.

Like addicts, we exploit experience.

The ether is redolent with humankind,

our majestic jabber.

 

Acknowledgement: This poem was first published in ‘Still Life’, a poetry anthology published by University of Chester Press – http://www.chester.ac.uk/search/node/still%20life