for Treasa Coady
What use can busy Gaia possibly have had
for the tiny, upside-down architecture
of the myriad pink cyclamen that push up for miles
through green leaves of hellebore and ivy,
in the tree-sieved sunlight of the Vikos Gorge.
She, who smoothed layers of sediment over ocean floors,
who ripped, creased and lifted continents,
who gouged out canyons and hanging valleys,
who invented the tiger, the water-rat and the flea
how did she ever find time to model the tiny pink twirl
of the autumn cyclamen?
Did she, one day, slap her hands on her lap,
sigh, and murmur, ‘time for a little beauty now,
time, now, for a little useless beauty’?
Moya Cannon’s most recent collection is Bunting’s Honey (Carcanet Press)
What use can busy Gaia possibly have had
for the tiny, upside-down architecture
of the myriad pink cyclamen that push up for miles
through green leaves of hellebore and ivy,
in the tree-sieved sunlight of the Vikos Gorge.
She, who smoothed layers of sediment over ocean floors,
who ripped, creased and lifted continents,
who gouged out canyons and hanging valleys,
who invented the tiger, the water-rat and the flea
how did she ever find time to model the tiny pink twirl
of the autumn cyclamen?
Did she, one day, slap her hands on her lap,
sigh, and murmur, ‘time for a little beauty now,
time, now, for a little useless beauty’?
Moya Cannon’s most recent collection is Bunting’s Honey (Carcanet Press)
