A Worn Away Scene from China

Abstract

Two Poems JosephWoods POETRY AWorn Away Scene fromChina Not near forthirty years and yet thegable familiar on the lane when the car came to it,to findher feeding crows from the front door, a lineofwashing in the facing field, flapping in thewind. In thekitchen of perfectly polished lino and Formica, the rangewaited foritssod of turfand the tea-tin with a worn away scene from China was taken down from its shelf. Madeira cakes manifested fromthe cool of theparlour and thedoor thenshut on itshidden stores. When Ipointed to thenew TV she said itkilled the time like the sets ofRosary beads draped over thebacks of chairs. Before leaving, I vowed to take with me the tickingof her kitchen clock and considering her isolation, asked did she ever learn todrive? Drive, she cackled, I wouldn't drive an ass. Signal Box Iwas thatchild peering out fromunder curtains at the passing train I'm now in those floor-to-ceiling curtains of childhood patterned with ferns that became faces, frightening when back-lit in the limbo of long summer evenings spent inbed. Winter and dark would diminish those ferny faces, then to swap blanket warmth forthechill embrasure of thewindow and peer towhere thegarden fellaway to the railway, to frosted sleepers and across to the signal box, always alpine, Swiss in demeanour. A beacon beneath a great bank of laurel and evergreens, a cube of light inwhich McKeown, a remote figure in black was always furtive, making tea between trains, between the lonely leveringof locos, guiding passengers and goods north and south. A captain of theabsences thatfilltimetables and nights dreaming of defection to theSoviet Union as he sipped teaon thebridge of something stationary. Joseph Woods isa poet and director of Poetry Ireland. A winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Award, his two poetry collections, Sailing to Hokkaido (2001) and Bearings (2005), are both published byWorple Press (UK). He recently co-edited an anthology of contemporary Irishpoetry relating to Japan, entitled Our Shared Japan (2007), publishedbythe Dedalus Press. 3 ...