Occasional Impressions

Gemini 3

God’s absence

First I drove in low gear
down country tracks and shopping streets.
I searched for signs in silhouetted trees,
half-blind windows and advertising hoardings.
In the gardens with broken sheds,
in the oxidised frames of bankrupt shops.
Growing restless I advertised, sent out invitations:
my favourite songs and books, items of clothing,
a letter, a note, my business card,
the best thoughts I had found in books
copied into last year's diary.
There was no reply.
I took text books and dictionaries,
the entrails of a bird,
parting slippery membranes with reddened fingers.
Nothing came but a desire to prove.

Till I was told I must wait
for the hand on the shoulder;
the unexpected envelope through the door,
a memo in my tray.
I put my mind to other things:
the picture on the wall,
sunshine through the trees,
the eternal wheel of money-making.
I hoped you would come when I least expected
and watched myself waiting.
Nothing moved.
At speed you forget.
‘In self-forgetfulness comes the approach,’
or so I hoped.

But you never drew alongside
in a long red sports car,
nodding as you burned up the lights.

In a darkened room I expected a light
but no switch threw.
I turned things off one by one,
pulled plugs, the curtains,
rolled desk tops over papers
still I sat unmoving.
I chased my thoughts down their usual paths
stamping as they tried to mate.
And all was still.

And now, after disappointment,
I know only one way:
to pretend you're really here.
To write this as though you existed;
to hold your hand in shopping malls,
in noisy offices, in evening bars,
on top of hills, looking down over
market towns and flooded fields.

I write you letters, lick the stamps
leave them on the table in the morning,
and count them as I come back through the door,
hoping one has gone.

ijf

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