Wet Clover Poem by Margie Cronin

Wet Clover



for Pablo Neruda

The baby's hands on my leg are like
wet clover. Like Neruda, I want to lay
my head on it, a pillow, a new earth
that sees only stars along its wobbly path
to sleep. That sleep is like my shadow who,
knowing I am lost, has come to find me
and explain - in riddles to be solved
tomorrow - how I came to lose my way
in the business and brightness of the day.
I shake a bit when first it touches my hand,
the skin instantly paralysed and dark,
but release my nerves to the cool rest
of its head when the dimensionless body
embraces me. Turning my eyes to the utter
blackness of an inner sky, I see small
white flowers which explode sonorously
into the striped vibration of a field of
bees. The dew on my face is like tears,
but cool ones, tears that had their birth
in a waterfall and have grown smaller and
smaller until they have no more memory
of sorrow. In these dreams, suddenly, I
remember the baby's hands and wipe them
with a towelling cloth. Like Neruda,
every action becomes a poem.

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Margie Cronin

Margie Cronin

New South Wales / Australia
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