Storms Will Tell

Moss

by Janet Frame

The Spring moss

the plush lining of the jewel-box

rediscovered beneath the snow.

Fever-green surfacings.

Ice with its edges smoothing

shaping in the lick-tongue of the sun

transparent white-green sweet;

then — moss as renewal, a green extra,

sun-sweat, the flower-in-itself, starry evidence,

incapable of wounding.

Spring-moss, crib-moss, beginnings.

Now, forlorn green light upon the black trees,

the moss of neglect, decay, weather,

the aftermath of a yearlong feast

with the year gone suddenly away.

The day has cut off the heat and the light.

Wind snarls in the rain O poor groaning mouth

at the crevices of a season shot full of holes

by birch and maple fire, the trees’ incredulous

It does not happen here, the violence of desertion,

of the difference between our lives as mosscovered graves

and the source, the mine of rich leaflight.

Newly unexpectedly ancient

the trees weep in their mossy beards

in the desolation of rain and cold

in the disillusion of a colourfast world’s fading.

Only the angel birches, good with weather,

receive violence, return grace.


Storms Will Tell: Selected Poems by Janet Frame is published by Bloodaxe Books and is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk