Collectors
That summer it was pencil leads,
snapped from Umber, Crimson Lake,
Grass Green and Ultramarine,
spilling from inkwells or hoarded in tins.
Hard to say what use they were,
why these heaped rainbows held the eye
like tropical fish. Absurd beauty,
and the shifting shingle sound
as they were counted.
We quarried their colours,
bartered brittle scraps
as if this currency were real.
As if our lives were measured out
in Canary Yellow, Golden Brown,
this brilliant jetsam.
The season blazed and died,
another year began
with stumps of pencil,
empty desks.
June 2001
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