except the wounds of time itself;
the hill we stand on,
swollen hourglass
measuring centuries
In this poem, Into Summer, she observes the world and the people around her, then compares the hill she is sitting on to an hourglass, to hips and limbs of lovers, to earth and finally to death.
Like many of the poems, it is a rather impressive intellectual journey and rewards a second reading.
There are literary allusions and an abundance of wit. I particularly liked the subtle homage to American painter Jackson Pollock in the poem Primary Colours, where we meet Kim, age 7, on his way to school:
the beeches and birches
on split shifts, overtime, have Pollocked the gutters
with blotch after blotch of orange.
And who could improve on these lines, from a poem called Trial?
if only she too would raise her face
to take in the scope
the white-capped waves
that fax and fax their urgent news
Think about it. That is exactly what waves do. But what is so clever is how these lines fit into the entire poem, adding so much to the poem's central theme.
There are sad poems, funny poems and poems filled with memory. Youthful poems and wise poems for one still so young. Children, cats, lovers, tramps, jewellery - everything is fertile territory for this sensitive writer, but her real strength lies in the poems from the trickiest zones of communication and dreams, and most importantly love and loss.
Godwit
