Moving K. to Glendalough
By Wong May
I set out to buy him a bed.
In a dale.
I set out to buy a dale.
In April,
After daffodils
A dale of bluebells.
Any pink you see is the purple dead nettle.
“Dead” we say, for they do not sting.
The streaks of mauve are that of lungwort
From our bed at home in Castleknock,
The tricolored flowerhead has an aurora glow—
Gold.
A wand. You want to wave it in the wild.
The leaves of pulmonaria—you can guess
Were used by folks to treat lung infections.
I want this plant in particular to flourish near K.’s bed,
That its mottled leaves will be visited by hairy-footed bees.
Bluebells, by the way, have a scent.
You can’t take it out of the woodland, that’s all.
I shopped for a bed,
Found it in a 1920s catalog,
A French wrought-iron bedframe, with bedsprings.
I used chalk-paint to outline the frame,
I took care to cover all the detailed work with
“Plasterer’s webbing,”
A scrim-tape which looks like bandage.
I want to suspend the sleeper’s dream above the bed
In a net
Gossamer-seeming,
That it will be a keeper of dreams.
A glimmer.
For others.
I would lighten it one day,
Darken it the next.
I moved the bed to the dale.
Half of which is buried in the flowering meadow.
Horsehair & straw & ferns coiled in the bedspring,
The trees around are white & misty, weeping.
The bed looks like a wrecked bridge in a dry creek.
I painted some debris, a blown tire, litter,
I took them all out, conscientiously.
I want the sky to be reflective—
A bit of sunshine found in a rockpool
Or mill-water
Blue with candyfloss
But untroubled.
Flat.
Above the bed the branches parted
Like a chancel arch, a casement of
Stained light,
On that little leaded square I wrote in chalk
“Gregor Samsa wakes
To find he has 6 sepals
& 3 stamens,
He breathes again.”
Bluebell time
This is not writing—
Not writing, this is waking, I said
Yes
“Anything to give a man peace.”
K. who lived with tuberculosis till he died.
The following spring
Michael Kelleher flew in a photographer from Boston
To inspect my workplace.
Fractious February. The garden still vacant.
We stood before the painting
Halfway up the stairs
On the second landing taking a breath
In a daze
Of near vacant possession
I said—but
For peace’s sake
Getting my breath back there like a furniture-mover—
“Yes, I paint.”
