SZ
good morning to you, first faint breeze of unrest
no louder than the sound of the ear unzipping,
late-comer, mere punctuation between seasons
whom the Chinese call
Sz
forgive me, small-mouth,
I heard you criticize the earth
and stepped outside to see the fields ruffle your cloth,
but you were moving on:
monotonous
vindictive
dust-bearing
scrupulous
one of the many mass-produced particles of time
by whom the fruit has small frost-marks
and their hearts are already eroded and I
too
if you think, leaf-thief,
if you think I care
about your soft-spoken
head-in-the-clouds
seizure of another and yet another and yet another hour
then hear me, Sz,
you are so bodiless, so barely there
that I can only see you through starlings
whom you try this way and that like an uncomfortable coat
and then abandon
———————————
Alice Oswald
Falling Awake
Norton 2016
