Enter a Cloud

Mimi Joung

Ceramics

1.

Gently disintegrate me

Said nothing at all.

Is there still time to say

Said I myself lying

In a bower of bramble

Into which I have fallen.

Look through my eyes up

At blue with not anything

We could have ever arranged

Slowly taking place.

Above the spires of the fox

Gloves and above the bracken

Tops with their young heads

Recognising the wind,

The armies of the empty

Blue press me further

Into Zennor Hill.

If I half-close my eyes

The spiked light leaps in

And I am here as near

Happy as I will get

In the sailing afternoon.

2.

Enter a cloud. Between

The head of Zennor and

Gurnard’s Head the long

Marine horizon makes

A blue wall or is it

A distant table-top

Of the far-off simple sea.

Enter a cloud. O cloud,

I see you entering from

Your west gathering yourself

Together into a white

Headlong. And now you move

And stream out of the Gurnard,

The west corner of my eye.

Enter a cloud. The cloud’s

Changing shape is crossing

Slowly only an inch

Above the line of the sea.

Now nearly equidistant

Between Zennor and Gurnard’s

Head, an elongated

White anvil is sailing

Not wanting to be a symbol.

3.

Said nothing at all.

And proceeds with no idea

Of destination along

The sea bearing changing

Messages. Jean in London,

Lifting a cup, looking

Abstractedly out through

Her Hampstead glass will never

Be caught by your new shape

Above the chimneys. Jean,

Jean, do you not see

This cloud has been thought of

And written on Zennor Hill.

4.

The cloud is going beyond

What I can see or make.

Over up-country maybe

Albert Strick stops and waves

Caught in the middle of teeling

Broccoli for the winter.

The cloud is not there yet.

From Gurnard's Head to

Zennor

Head the level line

Crosses my eyes lying

On buzzing Zennor Hill.

The cloud is only a wisp

And gone behind the Head.

It is funny I got the sea's

Horizontal slightly surrealist.

Now when I raise myself

Out of the bracken I see

The long empty blue

Between the fishing Gurnard

And Zennor. It was a cloud

The language at my time's

Disposal made use of.

5.

Thank you. And for your

applause.

It has been a pleasure. I

Have never enjoyed speaking

more.

May I also thank the real ones

Who have made this possible.

First, the cloud itself. And now

Gurnard's Head and Zennor

Head. Also recognise

How I have been helped

By Jean and Madron's Albert

Strick (He is a real man.)

And good words like brambles,

Bower, spiked, fox, anvil,

teeling.

The bees you heard are from

A hive owned by my friend

Garfield down there below

In the house by Zennor

Church.

The good blue sun is pressing

Me into Zennor Hill.

Gently disintegrate me

Said nothing at all.

by W. S. Graham

52 x 40 x 40 cms (20.47 x 15.75 x 15.75 ins)
Porcelain

POA