Plantation Spell
Like a tooth it fell, or like a
tusk, lodged loosely in a gum, rootless,
slipped to prop against its neighbour.
There is always one, askew on the edge
of the pillared dark its fellows make, straight
and bottle-brush-wilted, but
some green moves yet – not leaf, but
there on needles pressed to softness,
an inchworm arches, finds purchase, relief –
as on my palm its teeth made new lines,
made creases questions, refused
to grip on plastic, nail or glass, as on the bark
now, on the trunk made whole by inattention,
let it open ridges into mysteries. Let it teach how to
remember you are an earth-made thing.
This is a literally oral poem: poem as struggling mouth, with all the attendant features of a child, wanting to speak. Challinor, or so I imagine, selects a gem from this oral ecosystem, understanding it as a glittering presence, trying, within the sagely magic of poetry (see Yeats etc. etc.) to slot it back into place. A felled pine may as well be our soul, with a few moment of child-kindling mysticism.
The poem jolts us back to the organic nature of ‘gum’, as if to chew is to contain the forest in the arboreal panorama of one’s mouth.
Squidditas 