Peter Lilly: Poems

Your hair is blonde it reflects In green flecks, the grass As the water does the sky. At the end of the damp sand And the water of dusty clouds You talk to the ripples and the bubbles Dropping shells in the lapping. You talk the same language of expression For this is the calm constancy of l'étang Not the constant change of crashing waves. Beneath a sunset that marks us With a strong desire to remain I see it reflected in the turquoise of you eyes, a minute flame. In the water, the sun's bridal dress  Drapes an enormous fiery train And proudly L'étang de l'Or  Bares its burnished name. L'étang de l'Or, probably best translated as 'The Golden Marsh', is a large marshy lake between Mauguio and the Mediterranean Sea. This week I walked there with my son and we played at the waters edge before watching the sunset.

I find myself where the wind in the leaves is heard but traffic is not, where hills without houses roll to the horizon, where the creaky chair and  desk of tired varnish furnish the coming days with ideal, and I must write. The air is fresh and the sun blistering, et je vais parler français  avec les amis, en buvant le vin de la région,  et la sensation de la conversation dans une belle langue  ajoute une émotion pure, when I come to write verse in my native tongue. And the boisterous laughter of children, and the giggling of an infant energise this siesta atmosphere to fill the time with melody, and the fill the melody with words, and to fill the words with meaning, to fill the coming months avec le repos de maintenant. Written in July 2017 while Silje and I were on retreat with some friends in a tiny village in the south of 'Le Parc National des Cévennes.'  As I learn to speak more French I have ex...

The country I now call home is bleeding a senseless and panicked red, diluting its pain in the silence of normal morning routines. I still make my love the coffee I promised before we'd risen and seen the news, before we'd thought of the inevitability of children at fireworks, and how this the attacker knew. She looks so beautiful,  eyes heavy and glistening with unspilt tears.  Neither of us knowing how to use words,  how to understand the reality of atrocity.  Beyond the consolations of world leaders,  beyond social media reactions,  beyond the spin this will be used for,  beyond the excuses and explanations,   beyond the claims of responsibility and repeating backlash,  beyond the reports and crafted articles,  beyond the frames of the chosen photographs.  The truth is shards of lacerating glass.  It is a blood-stained truck and pieces of people.  It is a child's excitement dashed ...

Home is changing context, and that takes some time. It has to happen around you first, then seep in through your pours and unite your spine with your skin with your surroundings. Like with new language, listening, bumbling, confused, improving, trying and smoothing into rugged fluency. Home is changing context and that takes some time. Three weeks ago, my wife and I moved to Montpellier, in the South of France. It's a wonderful city but of course it takes time to adjust to new surroundings, new language, new culture. Last week I took some time to reflect, to feel that adjustment happening around me, to me and in me, and I wrote this.

The Horizon looms closer than the edge of vision, or the curvature of the earth, and the sky's third dimension stretches miles beyond the land, empty of clouds and stars. It draws me with compulsion, this great nothingness of the edge of all things. I'm sick of things, of bits and pieces, they get into your skin. They lie of necessity and draw themselves out across your walls, In front and in the way of every view of nature you've had the opportunity to see. I want to peek over the edge and experience that desperate lack of things. Tomorrow (4th May 2015) My wife and I will be moving from Northwest London to the South of France. I have been living in this area for almost eight years, since I started university, and have never lived away from the UK, so this is a big change for me. This is something I wrote last month, whilst making preparations to go. When you pack your life into boxes you realise how much 'stuff...