The Weather Wheel (7 page)
Authors: Mimi Khalvati
The juniper glistens with rain. Plumes, shadowed on the urn,
waver indistinctly. The fountain gushes, gushes, wind moans
and tugs at the palm fronds – join me, join me. Raindrops
hang two by two from railings. Everything has the shine
of black on it. Marina turns the music on and the room fills
with candlelight and yearning. Lamps throw umbrellas of light
against the walls, the red check tablecloth, a bottle of wine,
its candleglints, wait for company and we must stay with them,
listening to the fountain, gutters and the plucking of guitars
before the song begins. I have slung a quilt with violet roses
over the curtain rail to keep out the light in the morning.
Now I long for it, to see the sky, the golden stars of hamlets
high in the hills. I long to see the rain in massive drifts
open its fan, lay fan upon fan above the road to Buenavista
so that even the petrol station’s blinded. Rose/leaf/rose/leaf
and through the open door a closed door, a shining lock and key.
I always knew my mother’s funeral would be unseemly.
I never had the wherewithal. To have the wherewithal
is to inhabit a frame of mind that will stand one in stead.
In my dream a long avenue, pale with spindly poplars,
descended from the mountain – a peak like El Teide –
and along it walked on hind legs, but as naturally as men,
polar bears and among them my mother walked towards me.
Then I knew that all the separations I had suffered, all
the anguish they had caused me were but one separation,
one ball of anguish. And when I woke, I still could see
the avenue stretching to the mountains in mountain light,
the polar bears in file, solemn and steadily walking,
at intervals the silvery poplars on either side of the road
and in the middle my mother drawing slowly ever nearer
as if the avenue were a travelator moving in both directions,
carrying me forward towards her, carrying her forward towards me.
Let them be, the battles you fought in silence.
Bury your shame, the worst you thought in silence.
At last my beloved has haggled with death.
‘One more day’ was the pearl she bought in silence.
At night she heard the blacksmith hammering chains,
at dawn the saw, the fretwork wrought in silence.
‘The only wrong I’ve done is to live too long’,
my beloved’s eyes tell the court in silence.
The bell on her wrist was silent, her fingers
ice cold as the julep she brought in silence.
My beloved, under the shade of a palm,
was the girl, the mother I sought in silence.
‘Mimijune! Mimijune!’ My beloved’s voice
climbs three steep notes for tears to thwart in silence.
Three syllables of equal weight, equal stress,
dropped in a well, keep falling short in silence.
I am indebted to the writers and artists on whose work I have drawn for some of the poems in this book.
‘Marrakesh I–VI’: this sequence draws on
Matisse in Morocco: The Paintings and Drawings 1912–1913
, exhibition catalogue (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1990). The first part of ‘Marrakesh IV’ is a quotation from the catalogue essay ‘The Moroccan Hinge’ by guest curator Pierre Schneider. The second part of the poem is a quotation from Matisse himself, from a letter to Albert Marquet, also taken from
Matisse in Morocco.
‘Le Café Marocain’: after the painting by Henri Matisse, 1912–13.
‘Model for a Timeless Garden’: after Olafur Oliasson’s eponymous light installation exhibited at the
Light Show
, Hayward Gallery, 2013.
‘The Soul Travels on Horseback’: the poem draws on Juan Ramón Jiménez,
Platero and I
, translated by Salvador Ortiz-Carboneres (Coventry: Dangaroo Press, 1990).
‘The Overmind’: the poem draws on H.D.’s essay
Notes on Thought and Vision
, published together with
The Wise Sappho
(San Francisco: City Lights, 1982).
‘Kusa-Hibari’: the poem draws on and quotes from the essay of the same title by Lafcadio Hearn, published in
Kotto
(New York: Macmillan, 1910).
‘On the Occasion of his 150th Anniversary’: the phrase ‘spark of the Gods’ is taken from Friedrich Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’, 1785 (‘Freude, schöner Götterfunken…’).
‘Bringing Down the Stars’: the quoted phrases are from Vladimir Nabokov,
Glory
(New York: McGraw-Hill International, 1971).
‘Granadilla I–VII’: the sequence draws on J.P. Camacho,
Guanches
(Puerto de la Cruz: Editorial Weston SL, 2012).
Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up in England. She has published seven collections with Carcanet Press, including
The Meanest Flower
, shortlisted for the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize, and
Child: New and Selected Poems 1991–2011
, a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. In 2013 Smith/Doorstop Books published her pamphlet
Earthshine
, which was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. She is the founder of the Poetry School, where she teaches. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and a major Arts Council Writer’s Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the English Society.
In White Ink
Mirrorwork
Entries on Light
Selected Poems
The Chine
The Meanest Flower
Child: New and Selected Poems 1991–2011
Every effort has been made by the publisher to reproduce the formatting of the original print edition in electronic format. However, poem formatting may change according to reading device and font size.
First published in Great Britain in 2014
by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ
This ebook edition first published in 2014
All rights reserved
Copyright © Mimi Khalvati 2014
The right of Mimi Khalvati to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
Epub ISBN 978–1–84777–484–2
Mobi ISBN 978–1–84777–485–9
Pdf ISBN 978–1–84777–486–6
The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England
