Dark centre
The dust silvers and a wind from the corner Brings a dream of clarinets Into the thick orchestra. There's a place sending Messages across the river of people; And the sullen wharves of buildings Begin to smell of bales and distances.
I have a sad cave that nobody enters But the ragged man hooking the air With skinny fingers. I sit by him sometimes, Feeling his despair. His loneliness infects me.
But today's a day of clarinets and silver Under the lucky horseshoe of the sky.
I leave him and go into the whirlpools of light, Through a jazz of gardens, past heliograph windows.
— That house is my monkish cell, my fortress.
put my key in the door and stop, Terrified that the ragged man Is sitting in my chair with his skinny fingers Tangled in his lap.
Norman MacCaig
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