Windless but not becalmed

Windless and dry, we held fast to the land today. Unsettled day in settled weather, providing little inspiration, and less inclination, for a blog. In times like these I find myself sheltering in a book. This evening, as a mist settled on the village, vainly attempting to hush the raucous boasting of bronze and pastel sailing folk, I turned the pages of John F. Deane's , The Instruments of Art, and settled on:


Report from a Far Place

Sometimes, in impossible places, it is the small
illimitable pieces of the earth that will seduce you
back into grace: yellow sorrel in the hidden fissures,
the wren, spunk-tailed and pirouetting on the wood-pile,

splinters in the hewn timber you will relish
as imperfections. An orchid grows through wild grasses
the way the poem swells and will say me! this
being the first day again of all the world. You will be

witness to what a life saves out of the assault,
to prayers the defeated have no breath left to speak,
you will know the old, uncomplicated words

lifting once more like light, like love, like hope-
and you will find, at last, how the world writes itself
differently from what you had expected.