0024 There Is Here; Outside, Inside Poem by Michael Shepherd

My wrist rests on the desk’s raised edge;
fingers splayed on black and silver ‘mouse’ –
(did anyone tell those focussed scurriers underfoot,
they had a new relation?)

And the whole world of mind
from whatever there may be to know
of the divine and universal things,
law behind laws, love beyond loves
awaits, out there, awaits, in here
to meet these touching fingers, hesitating on the mouse
as if holding some real, passive pet
that yearns to know the world…

I still can taste the breakfast marmalade,
sweet but sharp; it is enough;
but in a few hours’ time
the whole world will be tempting me with taste.

Warm in a hoodie; the radiators have woken with a faint vibration
from their dormant summer siesta;
outside the window, I see
geraniums, abundant yet relaxed about it
in the late summer’s peace; violet petunias
which seem to know more about
ultra-violet than a scientist could tell;
my eyes roam round, sitting here;
out there, the whole curved world awaits the seeing;

Who notices, who knows, unless
they step to the front door to savour
the freshness of fresh air, the faint scent
of geranium leaves brushed, violet petunias,
the sweet peas awaiting an appreciative sniff,
- who notices our breathing, subtly irregular
as a poem cautiously surfaces? Out there,
a planet, encased in precious atmosphere,
revolves around a sun, blazing at a lawful distance…

A few sounds from the street drift in; just enough
to remind one of the lives of others, as these ears await
beloved voices; while out there,
the world shouts, whispers; a global cacophony
near to, far from, music’s heavenly cadences
and perhaps, the music of the spheres;

all this, all this, lives out there; stays in ordered place;
yet waits inside too, in some life invisible;
warm fingers poised on questing mouse,
whiskers twitching as it hesitates
from this small nibbled hole in the universe’s floor
where there and here may meet.



(after reading Rilke's 'A Walk')