Poetry: Fisheye by Nicholas Battey

Fisheye

I, smudge in the eyescape of others,
As my trowel lodges in mulch,
Palm-sore, snuggle the quiet bulbs
Into the trickling earth which inhumes us,
While these, artfully coned, only swoon
To consecrate a humble bloom.

The sun paints everslant shadows all day
In this great sphere of transition
Centring nowhere, where I witness
Clattering jackdaws, black hands at edges of vision;
A pigeon diving to the ancient oak
Descants over a cloudsong.

I work head down and I do not care
About the crunching crowds along
The path, children puddle-jumping,
All actions an acting in the long
Blind sleep of self, beneath the bronze Scots pines,
Aplomb, adamantine

Sentinels, setiferous fists raised to the hollow blue,
Heedless of a conscious cry.
Hedges patrol, keep watch on me,
Vain and stretched in fisheye,
Where the early frost becomes a forest of drops
On the blinkless, lashy grass.