Excited and Quiescent States

   There’s that-which-gathers,,
   a tableaux is unveiled, presented, observed;
   then that-which-pulls-apart... empties all, with a shudder, a sigh:

   54 starlings on an aerial, chattering, such chattering;  
   they huddle, quiver, jostle, dwell, then silence, they are gone.

   And, there’s Time: careless, absentminded, unconcerned. 

Inside, something coalesces,
I make... patterns, structure, relation;
then, distraction, the shape unravels:

what was formed, dissolves; there’s brief glimpses, 
some puzzlement, self-chiding, then featureless terrain, bareness, sleepiness.

In Time: oblivious, implacable, clueless.

Outside, I taste colours, lick contours, smell textures. 
Red berries, luscious yellows....celandine, laburnum, verbascum and,
always, there's dark green glistening ivy:

concerns blanket the spirit; we turn to the thin sun when able, 
but weariness flattens and diminishes.

Within Time: unappeasable, unforgiving, unsparing.

There’s movements... 
round and round, 
side to side,
up and down:

squirrels chasing around a tree, scampering wildly, fast turns, darting,
astonishing. Crows bounce, geese quarrel, ducks upend.

Surrounded by Ungainly Time: unschooled, soulless, unresponsive.

There is repetition. Contrast. Getting lost:

the stuck ones growl, the tethered ones strain, the flying ones fall, 
the disaffected stare, quietly sad, bemused, fearful.

Of Bearish, Boorish Time: dumb, foolish, moronic.

One aspect is skittish, 
one is compliant;
one is unresolved:

a coltish fluttering, self-flirtation, then dutiful demands; dogs pull, cats stretch, 
hoovers annoy, eyes glaze, will falters, resentment and defiance grow afresh.

Within Cheerless Time: imbecilic, unlettered, unconscious.

One is exposition, 
development, 
recapitulation:

-there’s a subject, agency, concentration, determination, expansiveness;
then the lichgate creaks, the boiler breaks down, the drains block. 
Commonplaces tear at creativity, dismantle effort, bring to nothing.

In Loutish Time: insentient, lumbering, a dunce.

One is of order, correctness, balance;
one of mess, disharmony;
one of struggle, then relief

after a day’s attention to aligning, balancing, controlling chaos.
The light fades, blessed stillness, just fatigue...and the fragile scent of sweet peas.

In Blank Time: obtuse, dense, witless.

Some elements are shimmering, 
some are still;
some viscous, dreadful:

the Pyrocanthus shivers and glows, the wet steeple shines; 
I recall the repellent grey muddy slopes to the river Wye

and Heathen Time: cold-blooded, thick-skinned, unimpressionable.

One makes soup,
one is so tired of shopping, revolted by washing up;
one can’t remember what was, where and when, how or why:

but, it was deliciously sweet, it may have been squash, sweet potato, carrots; 
always the shops were hot and noisy, the bags heavy, the journey ugly, perilous.

Within Cretinous Time: sterile, gormless, oafish.

One path is set..... proposal, reception, TV, children, schooling, fold bedding. 
Another path varies a little, then falters, narrows, fades, changes nothing.
Another isn’t much interested, there’s a dull shuffling.

the stench of the everyday, of transaction, arrangement,
the peasant’s calculating eye, the auctioneer’s terrible jabbering over poor sheep; 
the hurt, wandering afar.

And there’s Time: dullard, crass, ludicrous.

One is riotous disobedience,
one is the measured voice, systematiser; 
one stares, uncomprehending:

so things coalesce, stagnate, splinter; what happened? what was there?

In Time: blunderous, dimwitted, insensate.

Leaves tumble, pigeons waddle, jackdaws bounce:

today there were 63 starlings on the aerial, 4 dogs in the recreation ground, 
a black cat on a fence post, dark green shiny dripping ivy.

And Apathetic Time: clownish, inattentive, unmindful.

We have wandered, become stuck, fled, camped, slaughtered, erected shrines,
sought redemption, pleaded with / whined to / shrieked at ‘Gods’, 
been ‘Enlightened’, ‘Reasonable’, casually cruel, savage.
Now we have the era of incessant rain, antagonism:

the tribal call, the arming, the graves, the same stories: of initiation, rupture, quest. 
Christmas-after-ghastly-never-ending-ghastly-July-to-January-Christmas.

Fill Time: insensible, incoherent, thickheaded.

The beloved piano / paintings / perfume have aged, 
words are thin tinkling bells;
the Ivy grows:

the train is delayed, the pan burns, the aimless loiter, the black ice claims 
sprain and fracture, the shadows and sermons lengthen.

In Time: doltish, crude, arid.

Brambles thrust, insist, insinuate, walls crack.

there’s a gathering of things, just long enough to be discerned, 
sometimes wondered at, before dissipation, dissolution, scattering.

In Time: ineluctable, impassive, obdurate.

One disparages,
one is more fair;
one doesn’t care and just wants it all to end:

draw the curtains, make the tea, there’ll likely be no regeneration today.

Just Listless Time: unmollifiable, adamantine, pitiless.

There’s movements: 
round and round, 
side to side,
up and down:

the first time I saw squirrels chasing around a tree, autumn 1970, morning mist, 
sitting in the bowl of an old oak, reading Orlando,
sometimes gazing over towards Knole House.
20, enraptured, without anchor. The memory, the moment, dies with me anyhow.

Time yawns: blind, mute, half-witted.

We wait on the platform, 
she in purple chenille coat with large wooden buttons:

she’d taken the number 9 bus -and her golden straw hair- over Seal Chart, through Ightham, Borough Green; this was then a winding lane of broadleaf and fir, thicket and pond. 

She is 15, resplendent, luminous; she boards the train, I am bereft.

Time Ago: gormless, crass, distracted, idiotic.

Sensing the world.
In the World and Of the World; 
inescapable:

Objects come together, cohere, dissolve; there's curiosity, desire, accretion, depletion, indifference. 
When separation comes, I've felt relief, joy, desperation, hellishness, yearning, the misery of loss. Mostly, these feelings and memories slowly diminish, then there is nothing much left within us.

Silent Time: heedless, uncurious, half-hearted.

Peter Jennings
East Sussex
April 2022