Desmond Painter. Nog ‘n David Briggs gedig
Ek het gister hier ‘n gedig van die jong Britse digter David Briggs geplaas. Hier is nog een van sy gedigte; ek vind dit nogal treffend:
Closed Systems
David Briggs
The night wears stars; he wears his shirt
unbuttoned. Badgers amble across floodplains
towards him. Now, a thin tranche of moon,
partial and blotted: a strange time
for divining. He is transplanting water —
stream to river to estuary —
in a teacup and an unbroken line
from the east to the west coast; but,
stooping to the river he sometimes stops,
cognisant, perhaps, of madness in his method,
or his father’s ghost swimming the cold water.
When thunder rends sky he recalls
the rising water-table of his childhood;
raindrops collecting in teacups placed
for that purpose on the back doorstep;
always something upsetting his fieldwork.
