NEW POETRY FROM ENGLAND17
175
ELAINE FEINSTEIN
THE MAGIC APPLE TREE
Sealed in rainlight one
November sleepwalking afternoon streets
I remembered Samuel Palmer's garden
Waterhouse in Shoreham, and at once
I knew: that the chill of wet
brown streets was no more literal
than the yellow he laid there against
his unnatural blue because
together they worked upon me like
an icon infantine
he called his vision! so it was
with the early makers of icons, who
worked humbly, choosing wood without resin.
They stilled their spirits before using the gold
and while the brightness held under the kvass
their colours too induced
the peculiar joy of abandoning restlessness
and now in streets where only white
mac or car metal catches the failing
light, if we sing of
the red and the blue and the texture of goat hair,
there is no deceit in our prophecy:
for even now our brackish waters can
be sweetened by a strange tree.
