Ivan Head: ‘The Taxi Driver Curriculum’ and ‘A Little Watercolour’

A Little Watercolour

At dusk, ants
hover on fragile wings
sufficient for the still air.

Fish in the pond
are colour smudges,
glinting variations in wavelength,

Swept up in the leaf-net
in full daylight, they are gold
or mottled white-and-silver.

These undulations
in the water-green depths
are changelings
hinting at the edge of things.
Thus Monet’s water lilies.

Ivan Head

The Taxi Driver Curriculum

In the Sikh’s taxi
we discuss the Golden Temple
of Amritsar.

Within the Polish Catholic’s cab
it’s Pope St John Paul II,
the history of Europe,
and Prince Sobieski stopping the Ottomans at Vienna.

The Greek driver was Orthodox
and he gave me advice
on correct koine pronunciation
for St Paul’s Letters, and on St Paul himself.

Between Tullamarine and the city block
we traversed the Library of Early Fathers
including St John Damascene.

Ivan Head