When yellow leaves the sky 
they pipe it to the houses 
to go on making red 
and warm and floral and brown 
but gradually people tire of it, 
return it inside metal, and go 
to be dark and breathe water colours. 

Some yellow hangs on outside 
forlornly tethered to posts. 
Cars chase their own supply. 

When we went down the hollow 
under the stormcloud nations 
the light was generalised there 
from vague glass places in the trees 
and the colours were moist and zinc, 
submerged and weathered and lichen 
with black aisles and white poplar blues. 

The only yellow at all 
was tight curls of fresh butter 
as served on stainless steel 
in a postwar cafe: cassia flowers, 
soft crystal with caraway-dipped tongues, 
butter mountains of cassia flowers 
on green, still dewed with water.

Added: Feb 20 2003 | Viewed: 604 times | Comments (0)

Poet: Les Murray
Poem: The Mowed Hollow
Volume: Conscious and Verbal
Year: Published/Written in 1999
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