Robert James BerryHeronsIn the yard Tilting cast-iron crosses Raw lines nailed to the dead Time soughs in the dry esparto grass In earth palaces Termites thatch dirt At the gate Hear a scream of hinges Yesterday forcing in Under the almond trees tread ancestral steps These words fork their red earth Prise a narrow slat in time I shall commemorate their memories: That rise like herons from the wetlands Glide the great gable of the house The Dead Tinsmith's Wife Dust dries in the broken throats of the dengue drains A dog's body bubbles on the road Tinsmiths picked cavities in this land The sons are vendors in the dead teeth Their women home shacks gummed black by river mud At a rush window The founding widow's centenarian face is rough papyrus close-written with pain Time is the dust dried in the lapels of her throat Watch her watch the car smothered in wild pansies A goat sitting warming the hood herself sat between her now her then A fluttering butterfly A Tiger For the Low Country (for Ahila) If I smell her skin like the moon's amber skin the colour of a small flame I never want to go home The pious purples of dusk touch a single tree The air is an evening animal Thick Opiate Smell the Thunderheads mass The green young padi of the low country stir and like lit universes Those Eyes that eccentrically circle They are out to lick the stars Robert James Berry writes: I'm a Londoner by birth, currently living and working on Penang Island, in West Malaysia. I lecture in English at the University of Science here. I've had poems published in the States, England and New Zealand. Home | Editor's Desk | Poetry | Prose | Guidelines | Email | Links |