The Camping Ground Poem by Christopher Shepheard

The Camping Ground



The spaces that you left have not been filled —
No hands emerge to make the darkness warm,
Nor breathing with a rhythm now reminds
The early-morning hours of life. And there
Upon your little table, bare of clocks,
Where books and rings have broken camp to flee
And gather round you in another place
Remains the blister that your perfume left
(A monument to action) and alone,
Beside it like a sentinel in thought,
The empty Lanvin bottle, bought with haste
Upon some fast, forgotten, coming home.

The powder traces on the bathroom floor;
The ashes that for moments mark the dents
Where fitful flecks of fire drew to their warmth
Old warriors, whom morning melted on.
They could vouchsafe no voices to contain you
Within that camped confinement, theirs to role
To fight, to follow where your conquests drove them
And grace what furniture your flight affords.

A broken safety pin, a pair of tights,
Now cold within the small wastepaper bin —
The marks and ashes of a vanished host,
Departed to another night carouse,
Leaves the table featureless in white
When morning lifts the dust cloud, and the weak
Wounded linger on to forage food
And fight the birds of prey that pick at bones
Where once was fire and fierce companionship.

(1983)

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Christopher Shepheard

Christopher Shepheard

Kingston-upon-Sea, Sussex, England
Close
Error Success