Myra Schneider: Two Poems

The Swede

More like a deformed animal than a vegetable,

I imagine it snuffling in the dark, dreaming itself

a globe as it heaves against waterlogged clay and stones

to fill out its girth. Hard as mahogany, heavy as flint,

its thick skin is marked with blotches purple as bruise,

ringed with ridges. This one has an outgrowth

which looks just like a foetal limb. At first I brand it

inferior to the leeks I dug up in the garden one year,

each smooth as a pole and more whitely alive than snow

but the ungainly body speaks of persistent labour,

quiet confidence, gravitas, and I admire it for making

no pretence to be other than it is. I wonder why

we’re so careless of the planet which coddles seedlings

that look frail enough for worms to crumple and harbours

weighty vegetables, why we’re forever looking up at the sky,

probing Mars for signs of life, seeking out ever fainter galaxies

and, as the mystery of space-time grows, why we keep

trying to crack the secret which began the universe.

Better to consider the casserole we’re having for supper,

how when I lift the glass-lidded pot out of the oven

slow cooking will have turned the pieces of swede

luminous orange and soft enough to slip down

the throat, warm the belly. Better to ask how long

it will be before the swede’s an endangered species.

Myra Schneider

Instructions

Today we shall all be water pipes,

she said, pipes that know nothing of slouch

but stand upright against walls to let water

travel unimpeded into baths, basins, radiators.

Becoming pipes means unlocking

shoulders, ironing out kinks in backs

and knots in knees, challenging faulty hips,

waking up feet, exulting in the glory of flow.

In our new roles we shall be carriers

of water which blesses grass and flesh,

water which has no crises of confidence,

offers itself freely although we mistreat it.

Now we have re-invented ourselves

see how tall we are, tall as organ pipes,

as telegraph poles. Everything is possible

if we don’t stifle, but let in imagination and its music.

Listen, the sound is as uninhibited

as water. Inexperience is unimportant –

we shall practise the ocho step, enjoy

the brush of thigh against thigh, enter the rhythm,

its excitement, draw its emotion

into our bodies, move with the clear intention

of river water. In reality, as well as fantasy,

each one of us will become a dancer of the tango.

            Myra Schneider

Ocho step: the basic 8-count in Argentine Tango