Cameras don't get the smell of place.
I knew
a tree, which, at a time of year, opened
with a key of scent long passages of memory,
another side of Lethe, where the backward
immortality of thought's origin became
tangible in its roots' narrowing recesses
smiles and skin aroma
its warmth
passed on
Somewhere in April light, my mother cooks,
a saucepan of hot water bubbling round
vegetables, she in this room, sustained here
by recollection of the tang of
liquid she puts on her hair to make it shine;
though now of course others move and live there,
layered, apart from her, discrete animation.
Now he who makes this recalls, in low fields,
mountain roads he flows along on intermittent
rills of lavender flooding his life
[early morning, Leswidden, West Penwith]
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"Ozymandias I may be but I shall not build my statue of blancmange. " Peter Riley
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