Peter Daniels

NEW CREATION

It's a Monday in a month of pressure.
This year the mantle of the earth has shifted
underneath the mountains,
while we maintain our posture,
with our minds immune to change.

Weather seems hard to capture
but there are statistics. Flowers
are brief, but the trees remember
seasons in their rings. Who notices them
growing, while their blossom falls away?

The tree rings build a library
of seasons, printed lighter, or heavier.
The rumour in the library is that something
will be coming to destroy all this.
Nothing to do about it all but read.

Trees made into arks for the extinct:
the wood remembers the seasons,
the fossils never found. Down on the bottom
with the wreck, creatures are moving,
making the new geology, long beyond us.

* * *

DOWN AND UP

Under the beginnings of a storm, the trees are unhappy
and I yearn with them, how I long for a squall.

The storm is heavy but I'm not sad, something is
holding the depth within me, not tipping the scale.

I've come to notice when I'm down and up, wallowing
and achieving wonders, ridden by my own cycle.

The weight of the world on my shoulders feels more
satisfying, bigger and heavier than my skull.

Blessed by the weather or a simple coincidence,up
odd but true, it gets me there: a modicum of skill.

The sun peeps through the cloud and we all
peep back at it like coy children praised at school.

On the upper side of the cloud cover, God sits deciding
what's on the cards, sharpening the moon like a sickle.

Peter Daniels won the Arvon (2008) and TLS (2010) poetry competitions, and his first full poetry collection Counting Eggs is published by Mulfran Press. He was recently a writer in residence at London Metropolitan Archives. His translations of Vladislav Khodasevich from Russian will be published by Angel Books in 2013.