19th July 2022
This might be the warmest night of the year –
The warmest night, I think, for many a year.
Thus I find myself slipping the moorings of sleep,
Sparsely dressing in humid gloom,
And padding outside beneath a half-moon hoisting.
Cat-quiet past the barley, relishing its shurr
One last time, I’m expecting;
For over there looms the dust-paled harvester, locomotive large.
Crickets, of course, thoroughly unsilence this heat
Which has so whitened the path, it might be a chalkland lane;
And just one small bird falteringly sings
In that high breezebrittle bank.
To blazes with jellyfish rumours:
I strip, jump in from a swarshled rock
To wade the warm and moonglitter waves eager for depth –
Oh, such a treasury of phosphorescence!
And, crossing this seesaw swell to find the black cliff’s shadow,
Reward of cold fire blooms so bright and frasterful,
Such startled delight would have laughed from any child.
Now, how rare this luxury:
To just sit on this still warm bedrock of ancient,
Drinking in water and all the dark colours of my star-sparse view,
And be dried by the boiler-room enfoldment
Of this extraordinary night.
Comfortably naked I could have walked moonward home,
But you never know;
And I never would have known until too late
If some equally-inspired lady
Were coming down to bathe as I have done –
For no perfume we can make could warn approach
Against such a power of sunsbreath honeysuckle.
© Christopher Jessop 2022
