Koi Carp

Hum
drum

Though, to the ancient
mind, surrounded by rare
novelty like an
enchanter’s castle, the
garden centre’s verdant
overtures fall
flat.

Here, the hunter
gatherer scratches an
atavistic itch, fashions
new Edens suited to
the size of his purse.

And so on,
until mid-sulk, my
truculent eye was thrilled by
complex, gliding
movement.
O wonder!

A thousand jewelled shapes
performed an
endless arabesque, every
way they turned
away, leading the design
into shimmering
convolution.

What He willed was so.
Gratuitous beauty
heaped on the
innocent eye.
A liquid paradise
of contemplation.

These
were not ornamental
fish, these were the
very thoughts of God
glimpsed in
mid-creation.

Shaken
by how simply the shadow
play of the mundane
gives place to
divinity,
I, in spirit, replaced
my shoes and tip-toed
reverently away.

Simon Peter Iredale
Copyright: By application

Last poem by this author

On Wenlock Edge

On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

’Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
’Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.

Then, ’twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, ’twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.

A.E. Housman