Appendix: Poems from The Eye of the Hurricane

Summary

Poems from The Eye of the Hurricane which have not been reprinted and which are referred to in the text.

Invocation For Gregory

When the wind's deluding grace

makes the trees and waters wild,

or when the sun pursues its race

over city, sea and field, -

sun, shine gently in the place

where you see my gentle child;

wind grow still before his face:

all the elements, be mild.

Now that I, with voice nor hand,

cannot touch him with my care,

I deputise it to the wind:

let the northward stream of air

flowing over plain and mountain

weave around his chafing fear

unseen its passive cool affection,

while I burn in silence here.

Let the impulses that start,

born to die without their end,

the halted gestures of my heart, -

words, caresses, movements, - blend

and be directed to his mind.

The bird cries outside the nest,

darkness throbs. What I would find

give to my son: be his rest.

The Lover

Always he would inhabit an alien landscape,

someone else's setting; he walked with surly

devotion the moist paths of a bush valley

whose trees had spoken to one he could not keep

as friend; he would learn local names, claim kinship

by an act of will; then let his mind haunt

and cling as hands grasped branches, stones,

eyes learnt by heart another sky's shape.

In late childhood he had lived a year

emotionally wedded to an elm, whose leaves

crumbling in all his pockets evoked rough

and bitter the warm bark; then a small creek

had filled one summer with the breathing air

of willows and brown water; by such loving

he cast off abounding, more exacting dreams,

and baffled others less than he would think.

Later, his enlarging world demanded

mountains, passionate rivers, a harsh bay,

as wider symbols; where no loved face

spread to his hand, he would stroke the wind-grained wood,

learn and cherish a stone's contours, and,

where once the grace of a girl's voice had spoken,

set blind feet on the hare's path to walk

and closet with a rock his loving blood.

The climax never came; he might have cooled

his flesh utterly in the sudden river,

or found long satisfaction in a haven

made solitary by hills; but gradually

the challenging lust ebbed back unfulfilled.