Another Ter Balkt poem

She carries a glass of water up the stairs

    for W.

Rainbows crowd in front of the window

Seas crowd together under her foot

She carries a glass of water up the stairs

In her glass bouquets of papaver, golden

fields of corn, stars of lesser celandine;

dusty evenings and villages, like snow

flaking in the glass that she carries up the stairs

It is the great flight of stairs from silence

to silence, it is the ending flight of stairs

In her glass: goldseekers

In her glass: winter circuses

She bravely carries her big glass of water

Listen, in her bermuda triangle

planes and fast ships will

plunge and founder, against her glass

lips will stick fast, spirits, drinking

and shouting ‘There is The Sea, The Sea -’

(Four highroads peer through the keyhole)

She carries her glass of water up the stairs

It’s water that gleams like clear light

Summer roads; towns; mountains in her glass

The beams of the house place a frame around her

Blazing old water on sailing ships sings

of love; she is love

The stairs are of rumours and almost break,

brittle as the twigs of thought

but she gracefully carries her glass of water

(All stairs would go to the roaring fire,

the houses would secretly go to the maelstrom

where even ships and planes end)

She though carries her glass of clear water

She carries her glass up the ash-flaky stairs

and seas ripple deep down under her foot