My dreams contain fragmentary
facts, swept up in a surreal heap –
I miss the plane but the airport
is a shed in someone’s backyard
and the pumpkins growing there
are as big as tyres.
Every so often a lone image
remains, unsettling strange
and almost beautiful.
This was a young man
playing music - but his instrument
was a peacock, tail trailing
like a kite’s and he played up and down
the ribs with silver chopsticks.
I didn’t hear the music,
just saw the player and his peacock
pass my window and woke
as shocked as if I’d seen a saintly vision.
It still bothers me, the peacock all
stately tail,
colours still vivid against the pale sky
and the musician, in courtly dress,
his chopsticks held like elegant
drumsticks.
That small scale of exposed ribs
such unnecessary extravagance
for the silent music.
Catherine Bateson, 2012
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