Gillian Clarke 'The Sundial'

GILLIAN CLARKE.

Selected Poems

The Sundial

Owain was ill today. In the night

He was delirious, shouting of lions

in the sleepless heat. Today, dry

And pale, he took a paper circle,

Laid it on the grass which held it

With curling fingers. In the still

Centre he pushed the broken bean

Stick, gathering twelve fragments

Of stone, placed them at measured

Distances. Then he crouched, slightly

Trembling with fever, calculating

The mathematics of sunshine.

He looked up, his eyes dark,

Intelligently adult as though

The wave of fever taught silence

And immobility for the first time.

Here, in his enforced rest, he found

Deliberation, and the slow finger

Of light, quieter than night lions,

More worthy of his concentration.

All day he told the time to me.

All day we felt and watched the sun

Caged in its white diurnal heat,

Pointing at us with its black stick.