Sampurna Chattarji
because feet will always fly
skin will always crawl
goose-flesh will swan-song
semantics turn antics
to good advantage
but what when it fails?
up-lifting
like an in-spired un-mechanical
crane
depth out of flatness
is beyond most.
but you
you
push light through wall
each time
a new break
through which my eyes
can fall
skyward again.
you
never stop changing
me
into the colour
that might
rise or spread
splotch or gather
darkness
gentling
I look for the knife
in your softly-gathered
flowers
the ridge of the face
that sits white on white
in a neural
inwards so strong
the surface is endangered
beyond touching.
oh and then you
restore
my fingertips
in them I feel
the blue grapes
ripe for picking
from their crushable glass.
this is all your doing.
I have never felt so close
to the edge
of paint
what paint might mean
beyond knowledge
of what it is
what it can do
how edible
and cruel
how demandingly
it rises
to meet every challenge
you set it.
this is your owning.
I have stolen a piece
for days
when words are not
(they never are)
enough.
Sampurna Chattarji, poem for Barbara, August 2015