My Hoi An pot

 

My Hoi An pot

This little pot from the Hoi An hoard was made over half a millennium ago, 

From a ship that sank around 1480

In a place so stormy it’s called the Dragon sea. 

Already beneath the waves when Henry VII won his throne,

Sleeping on the sea bed through all Henry VIII’s travails

When Elizabeth’s ships overcame the Armada,

Through Stuarts, revolution and restoration, German Georges,

When Victoria’s empire swept the world, this little pot was just swept by sea currents, settling sand.

Through Ming dynasties, empires, China’s revolution, when wars raged above, it lay quietly in its shipwreck in the South China Sea. 

And now this modest capsule of history 

Lies in my hand, resonating 

With all that happened overhead. 

LMC 25.12.2020

Kashgar

Kashgar, Kashgar, for how many years have you been 

My ultimate destination? Now you’re published 

On the tourist lists of “last chance to see” 

As China swings its wrecking ball 

Through your ancient Turkic homes 

That don’t fit stamp of the Han. 

Crumbling old mud and tiled lanes 

Of granddad, auntie craft works. 

Why are the horseshoe makers closed? 

Look where the Uighurs’ Nomad horse fairs are no more. 

Free people tied to Urumqi factories or prisons 

They don’t fit the stamp of the Han 

What point is there now 

In the fabled Sunday market of Kashgar? 

There is no value when

A concrete travesty has trampled 

This glorious meeting of the silk roads 

There is no sense in this westward 

Wrecking march of the Han

LM Collis 2009

Today, Margate cemetery

H

E

A

Today, under a wide, white Thanet sky,   we went to Margate cemetery 

I wanted to tell my Dad that John Peach had died. 

He never wanted his sister to marry John

And yet they stayed together for 60 years. 

It’s not as though I can send my Dad a text 

To: George1925@bonesunderground.com

Subject: your brother-on-law has died. 

I wouldn’t do that even if he were alive.

And so I went and cleaned their grave

Told them our news: John, the funeral, the pandemic 

they couldn’t understand, And took them flowers,

Glad that my guerrilla plaque to my Mother had not been taken away.  

The flatness of Thanet affronted me anew. 

We spent our lives going back and forth over the Peak District,

And I wondered what really made him relocate us there. 

There was always the story of how he’d liked the area 

from when stationed in Deal

But there are so many different stories that I can no longer 

believe the simple one I was told. They feel dirty, like lies. 

I know that if I asked someone else

It would be a totally different point of view. 

But we are all multiple beings, reflecting different facets for the moon, the light  

And so all I can do is accept I know a truth, just the one potential one

Among the many  

LMCollis 19.9.20