Reality

 

[Reality]

“A line of verse has as much reality as a cheese coupon or chilblains.” (Etty Hillesum, December 1941)

 

Sometimes reality seems to have

no beginning or end

but we do.

 

Experience teaches how reality

inspires intense research;

other days it’s just shut the door.

 

Running one way is one way

while everyone else is running

the other towards reality.

 

The loudest voice in the room

is worth distinguishing from

the silence that is beyond words.

 

Reality is work and vice versa,

testing the body to the limit;

it is rest, pondering change.

 

O the follies accomplished

and the heavens found with something

tangible as reality.

 

When it’s hot it’s hot.

Reality is whatever’s there

in the cold light of day.

 

Humans are landscapes

breathing invisibility deep

and taking the medicine.

 

Innocent words cover lots of

territory, trialled and transcendent,

but to be scrunched and thrown away.