Paterson, "The Circle"

for Jamie

My boy is painting outer space,

and steadies his brush-tip to trace

the comets, planets, moon and sun

and all the circuitry they run

in one great heavenly design.

But when he tries to close the line

he draws around his upturned cup

his hand shakes, and he screws it up.

The shake’s as old as he is, all

(thank god) his body can recall

of that hour when, one inch from home,

we couldn’t get the air to him;

and though today he’s all the earth

and sky for breathing-space and breath

the whole damn troposphere can’t cure

the flutter in his signature.

But Jamie, nothing’s what we meant.

The dream is taxed. We all resent

the quarter bled off by the dark

between the bowstring and the mark

and trust to Krishna or to fate

to keep our arrows halfway straight.

But the target also draws our aim —

our will and nature’s are the same;

we are its living word, and not

a book it wrote and then forgot,

its fourteen-billion-year-old song

inscribed in both our right and wrong —

so even when you rage and moan

and bring your fist down like a stone

on your spoiled work and useless kit,

you just can’t help but broadcast it:

look at the little avatar

of your muddy water-jar

filling with the perfect ring

singing under everything.

Don Paterson