AUGUST IN NÜRNBERG
Heat out of mind, time struck
like a crystal bell chiming the clock
of light, August in Nürnberg.
Two children chase their bulldogs
who are tussling on a lawn,
they call them by name:
Aaaaaaan-dré! Ruuuuuu-di!
In this crystal prison, my memory, I think
they will call
forever.
Its walls are certainly out of sight.
Forever till the night
when the clock breaks and the words
go out beyond hearing.
But now the trees are loopy with spotlights,
the garden’s warm with human life:
all the churches have been rebuilt,
the sacred miseries all been catalogued.
Somewhere, someone is crying out –
always.
The children will find this out
in their own ways.
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DAVID SERGEANT‘s poems have recently appeared in The Guardian, Poetry Ireland, Poetry Review and Rialto; his second collection will shortly be published by Green Bottle Press.
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Read more by David Sergeant:
Two poems at PRAC CRIT
Poem in The Guardian
David Sergeant’s first poetry collection, “Talk Like Galileo”, available from Shearsman Books