Chinese Whispers by Nicholas Tolkien

Chinese Whispers

I.

I remember the house where I lived as a child

the lagoon of tubas that sang to me in cold evening.

I remember the sound of children playing

their laughter harpooning through the hyacinths.

I remember seeing daffodils bloom,  hearing their first words

(and their last)

As the moon burdens the sky and banishes the sun

I am lying awake watching from my pillow.

Walled men knock at the door of my father 

Poisoned voices.  Speaking, hissing

words I’m too young to understand.

Beneath my window people are talking

while strangers walk on Chinese fields after a bad harvest

a woman is crying

there is a scream…

Then a silence that can never be disturbed.

(I remember a harbour where ships are leaving and waving goodbye to a face.

I remember going in a carriage to see a relative I never saw again.

I remember the sound of a funeral being broken by birds chirping.

And I remember the nights I dreamed of you.)

II.

A naked man drinks and lies on his back watching the stars.

His body is boneless and his eyes are spirals.

Stoned, he wakes from the dreams of experience and the dreams of life

Then wanders to the garden where he used to sit…(with her)

Watching the same stars, sipping the same wine from the same glass.

He remembers the air.  Its perfume.

Only people change.  Nature is always the same. Endlessly the same.

And its perfume is the same as the night when they first kissed.

His black hair fell against hers like a mirage…

Now his hair is white.

And noone sang his song in the end.

(I remember watching the river and wondering what becomes of water?

And I remember the end of childhood, how my hands were bigger than before)

III.

He walks to the river.

IV.

Fish are swimming, quail fly home from southern winters on southern lakes

He is on the water now

and the winds of Pallas from a distant time

billow Chinese whispers in the moonlight.

The stone dragons of the water are speaking

and he is listening; listening to sounds he cannot hear.

Enthralling the interest of the geese, the man falls into the water

and begins to drown in cold evening

The fish are swimming still

The birds are chirping  still

(A woman is crying

There is a scream…)

And now a goose is being born.

V.

Bluebells are calling, a moth is on her way

and lovers hold hands in a picture…

for all things are connected by how far they are apart.

And sometimes, the man remembers nothing.

He watches from windows

while dark souls depart through shadows of  moonlight

and the southern winnow moves across the sky.

Silent, as if thunder is silent, as if our hearts are silent.

(as if the trill of violas could tame the tigers lame)

As if we all are silent.  As if we all were silent once.

VI.

I cannot hear the Earth turning or an ant dying

but I remember a person.

And I remember a body

And how they were at birth bonded by a blinding light (that came from heaven)

And I remember how different the face and body became

And how at the time of passing

The person swam away into the river where children played

And floated to a new hill, to a different body, to a foreign sky

And I remember nothing more than the sound of laughter and the sound of memories

(Because even though I did not remember them, I had not forget them either)

VII.

And while I dreamt of you, tiger lillies danced on blue vestiges.

I felt part of some wider picture that I wasn’t painting

a million fireflies were dancing that night

and tomorrow a million more would dance again.

After all; in the seizure of a picture, there is no centre

and that night, someone was looking at me,

admiring the paint and admiring the figure.

Who is sleeping now on a bed of violets?

VII.

Dreaming and remembering, thinking and cursing

an old man tells his life:

“What Fate.?”

(I remember youth’s promises.

I remember the rain and all of  its consequences)

Bone-dead, he whispers in her ears, silently,

(as if thunder was silent)

“It doesn’t matter, I have continued life.”

But tomorrow will hold its grudge.

And winds are coming from Eastern lands.

I remember the Gargoyle’s sacred song that told of what’s to come…

(a silence that can never be disturbed)

It began like this.