-Robert Gibbs
A rugmaker has a hook for a hand his cat
wants to spar with a mesh map that
spills of his table and cut wool
in all the best colours
sandalwood and mossgreen primrose
and old gold he's knotting
quarter-inch by quarter-inch into a
paradise to stand on while the snow
outside dies away days and stiffens
nights and the ground ivy riots
royally over that plot too shaky
and mucky for a spade let alone
two feet better off here holding up
a lap for the heavy garden he's making
to double down upon That's
his way of filling out a row
he latches twist after twist and
knots it in till he's at the edge
and off it Safe past the outer
middle and inmost borders
and past the lowest panel where a lioness
leers from a white doe's shoulders
and jackals scuttle away and past
that ground where he'll root
a flame-edged tree and so join
end to end and side to side he comes
into his rich garden planted
for him with twinned golden
birds and turbanned horsemen. he
the masterhooker hooked into a dream
sniffs what's out there
clay quaking worms waking