ACROSS THE BLUE MOON (Speedies Phase 2)

Jane Holiday

³Come again in your next life,better prepared,
When the walnut tree is painted yellow.²

Under a waterproof lining
In the Millennium Dome at Greenwich
I slurp green tea and marzipan
And ponder the words of the goddess
Watching a snake,
Luminous in the cold purple light,
Trickle a crust of skin across the stage.

I turn into a forest
Nurturing sweet prinking birds
And slithy toves,
Blossoming buds and itchy twigs,
Scabby greenish bark oozing juices,
Insects quivering for fresh fields and pastries new.......

I know you shouldn¹t argue with oracles
Although you can question them
But:why should a tree be painted yellow?
And which particular walnut anyway?
Should I try Search: walnut + yellow
Or risk the owner¹s wrath
And paint the first one I encounter?
Or maybe recreate one
In that opaque globe inside my brain?

And: if I return in another life
What choice do I have
In being better prepared?
Where should I garner the necessary tips
To arrive solvent in an unfamiliar world?
What if this unfamiliar world
Needs other properties
And solvency is not a prize?

What grace
The elegant hedgehog shows
Steering her prickles across the road
Towards the picnic site.
A daydream in cufflinks
rough links,
Wrapped in crumpled paper bags
Floats down the river
While on the bank
Women scrape the mud off their boots
With plastic knives and spoons.
A parrot in a green hat
Squawks luminescent cadences
Taunting the jasmine-scented air.

I turn into a public swimming-pool
In the late evening.
No hard muscled keepfitters,
Arthritic wrinklies
Nor pairs of friends chatting
As they breaststroke sedately,
Oblivious of the impatient crawlers.
Now the tiles are free of cornplasters,
Watchstraps and skeins of hair
And from his chlorinated den
The midnight minotaur emerges
Splashing with steaming nostrils
And eager kicking hooves,
Truffling and snorting
With almost happiness.......

Next I become a firework,
A spiral of silvers and scarlets
Hissing and sparkling
Into a terminal rocket
Of skyborne stars
To cease upon the spaceline
With no gain.......

And then a cloud
A bit of dirty fluff like toe dirt
Buffeted by birds,balloons and helicopter blades.
But earth,air, fire ,water
No element prepares me for a future life,
Nothing shows me how to live
In a new century
With no gods or new gods
In outer space or inner space,
Waves or particles.
For the grave¹s a fine and private place
But none,I think,discover there
A painted walnut.

Earth,Air,Fire,Water
Combine
With angels,archangels,
Cherubim and seraphim
As many as will mass upon a pin
To send me,
Like a sculptured Ferris pod,
Soaring Into Year two thousand .

So - holiday greetings
To all our readers
And a prize of a plastic replica
Of the Millennium Dome
To anyone with a walnut tree
(I¹ll supply the paint).
Runners-up receive a free oracle reading
From a goddess of their choice.