Imagine Poem by Peter Elliott

IMAGINE

Imagine blindly
You and I
Are seated in a sealed-off sphere
Rolling down to Main Road
River gaudy fish
In our subatmospherine
With the birds for company

And the sun is showering torches
Of rainbow sparks
Of pervading light
All around the round sphere,

Rolling down
New-born watered earth
Where once dull dust patches throng
And humming hub of people smaller like ants
But work like ants
Ground alive after rain

And the sun shining through the guardians
Of this terrestial drama panorama
Beneath

And we are in the sphere rolling
Watching detached
Surface gravelling on the grating
Shingle wet like sea
Above

When bird walks into tree shop
Orders a well-done tune
So sprouts with ten-piece band
Into devasting ravished silent sounds
That isn't silence

For the trees are congratulating everyone
The trees are smiling
And the sky is blue like sky

Through the window of the sphere
Of leaves light and high
Dance wave sweep and swoop
With bees, quaint squirrels
Of yellow-brown happiness

And grass is brighter-painted sun
painted by leaves
Raking into sphere Touch me
Beckon laugh Touch you
Beckon depart

While sphere dissolves in them in not-dream
And I am rustling down to Main Road
In the glowing leaves.

What are you doing?

(June,1970, Cape Town, South Africa)