The Holy City
Come up to it, as you stand
there
that the wind is quite warm on the sides
of the face. That it is so, felt
as a matter of practice, or
not to agree. And the span,
to walk over the rough grass - all of this
is what we do, quite within acceptance
and not to press
the warm alarm
but a light
surface, a day
lifted from high
thick roots, upwards.
Where we go is a loved side of the temple,
a place for repose, a concrete path.
There's no mystic moment involved: just
that we are
is how, each
severally, we're
carried into
the wind which makes no decision and is
a tide, not taken. I saw it
and love is
when, how &
because we
do: you
could call it Jerusalem or feel it
as you walk, even quite jauntily, over the grass.
that the wind is quite warm on the sides
of the face. That it is so, felt
as a matter of practice, or
not to agree. And the span,
to walk over the rough grass - all of this
is what we do, quite within acceptance
and not to press
the warm alarm
but a light
surface, a day
lifted from high
thick roots, upwards.
Where we go is a loved side of the temple,
a place for repose, a concrete path.
There's no mystic moment involved: just
that we are
is how, each
severally, we're
carried into
the wind which makes no decision and is
a tide, not taken. I saw it
and love is
when, how &
because we
do: you
could call it Jerusalem or feel it
as you walk, even quite jauntily, over the grass.
~ J. H. Prynne
~
(The White
Stones)
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