'Wordless, nevertheless, I turn my mind / to the plain vase gifted with peonies' Photo: Alex Seinet / Unsplash.
Silent school
'Silent school' by Jonathan Wooding
Three high windows deliver
the movement of summer trees
and light on a central table,
water jug, vase, flowers, books.
I sit here involved in how long
it takes to mend things – reality
breaks in, telling other tales;
here pass from plot to poverty.
Our liturgy today a stomach rumbling,
a shuffle, exhalation, a cough;
we fidget, and swallow, decorating
this hideout with nothing but ourselves.
I scent the starved sentences
of a teacher taught teaching without ploys –
imagination’s a mind changing place
from a loss to a compensation.
Wordless, nevertheless, I turn my mind
to the plain vase gifted with peonies;
my eyes break on the water jug, pouring
tumblers of light unobserved.
