The Glass House | Slow Words

The glass house is a hole in the rain,

the sun’s chapel,

a bell for the wind.

Cucumbers, full of themselves,

the long green lungs of that still air,

image the fruit of staying put,

like water beetles in woodland puddles

ad hoofprints.

And I

Am a hole on the glass house,

taking my time between the rows.

The leaves, the yellow blooms, the pots

Vanish through a loop of thoughts.

then far off

comes the cluck sound of this green can

dipping and spilling….

And dipping again.

Alice Oswald, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile, Oxford University Press, 1996; Faber and Faber 2007

Cover: Larves de Trichoptere, Hubert Dupret at Slip of the Tongue, Punta della Dogana, Venice (picture Diana Marrone)