Saffron by Tony Harrison
Where can we go, she says,
There’s nowhere to go.
The garden shade gives up at noon.
An alarm sounds distant, grows louder
And fades.
The dog raises his head on the whisper of a breeze,
Then slumps.
Another barks in the muffled faraway
And falls silent.
Time, drugged by heat, stretches
Meaningless.
In the room, now, all windows closed,
Blinds drawn,
A sun golden canvas shimmers.
The green wall behind seeps into the frame,
Ghosts of a storm,
Hover on the edge of a phantom radiance,
Spreading his wings in the vapoured dust.
And a boiling vanishing point of light,
A sun folding back into the darkness
Or the exploding light of its birth
Splits the sky.
Are we, here now, standing too close
Or too far away to be saved?
It’s a beautiful summer’s day, she says,
But he is sad.