This poem is taken from Stand 224, 17(4) December 2019 - February 2020.

John Senior Poem
Imagine you

imagine you as me sometimes in the house or the garden sometimes on the fell in a field or on the water imagine you are me looking at flowers looking at the year of clouds and rain some snow and ice when everything cracks and snaps like brittle plates of glass like snapping frosted twigs like crackling fire and crackling fat Imagine leaves shine and summer sun rich until they become sugar full and their colours sweep your mind through til all that remains is joy joy of the sound of colour the overwhelming joy of identity within this living picture or imagine a winter fire in the grate when sunlight at least ten thousand years old and more returns to light the dark and cast a shadow or imagine you are bathing in the lake how cold to the bone how life affirming is the rough towel and body shaking reaction up the hill down the hill imagine you are the ground turning the bold bird relentless in feeding for the next bird to be imagine you are the tree route highway as you blindly follow the pull of the soil and rock imagine you are the rock once young and even now not worn down by time imagine you are the water fall falling babble babbling washing washing washing being the stuff of life imagine you are spring in the lakes imagine you are summertime imagine you are wintertime in the lakes imagine it is your time in the lakes and you explore fern and spider web, snake cast and sheared sheep, fresh new lamb bouncing imagine being that alive imagine you see a reflection of your identity in everything around you the trees shrubs flowers leave bark and bud gall and seed spinning sweeping gliding falling eaten and flown to have a readymade garden of Eden to start growing imagine you are growing in the mountain and fell and forest and field and stream and lake imagine you are a seeker of fish a fish a minnow a snail imagine you carry your home on your back imagine your home is where your heart is imagine you are a cloud a steam above a chilled lake where a sound in winter is a scissor cut in the air imagine you are a frog toad newt or slug imagine imagine moving all things as one imagine that


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