My Sole Desire
My Sole Desire
(After the ‘Lady and the Unicorn’ Tapestries)
No natural mirror to be found
in the forest, where songbirds
change their voices and a light
is clotted by the trees, so I show
the creatures their reflections.
It is natural to distrust what is
revealed to be yourself, but fear
retires as rabbits realise a paw
that hides their face is domestic,
lions accept a mane as their own.
No instrument moves my heart
like the wind over water, an organ
of necessary and melodious gristle.
I had prized my Love’s vocabulary:
clothes and necklaces, whispers of
a want made flesh. Here, no collar
chokes a fox, the oak distinguishes
itself in shadow, a thousand flowers
jewel my hand. My sole desire now
is a mirror of this: the tender land.
***
Published in this week’s Telegraph’s Culture Newsletter. Written after seeing the Lady in the Unicorn tapestries at the Cluny Museum in Paris. You can see them in the first few minutes of this episode of Kenneth Clark’s ‘Civilisation’.