Still Life by Ciaran Carson

Author:Ciaran Carson [Carson, Ciaran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Irish poetry
ISBN: 9781943666386
Publisher: Wake Forest University Press
Published: 2020-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Gustave Caillebotte,

Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877

after Francis Ponge, ‘La pluie’

The rain, in the courtyard where I’m watching it come down, comes down at many

Different rates of knot. Its central zone is a finely woven curtain—sheer net, perhaps—

Thinly broken, relentless in its fall, but relatively slow, which must be down to the

Lightness and size of its droplets, an ongoing, frail precipitation, like real weather atomized.

Heavier and noisier the elemental drops that fall close to hand to the walls to

The left and right: here the calibre of grains of wheat, there plump as peas, elsewhere ample

Glassy marbles. Along window rail and sill the rain washes horizontally, while clinging to

Their undersides in rows of tetrahedral beads. According to the whole surface of a little

Zinc roof overhung by my lookout, it streams in a very fine sheet, shimmering on account of

The currents variously created by the imperceptible undulations, bumps and ripples of the metal

Blanketing; and from the adjoining gutter, where it moves reluctantly with all the force of

A low-gradient runnel, it suddenly releases its flow in a long, perfectly vertical, lazily braided

Thread to the ground where it shatters and spatters into brilliant glinting needles.

Each of its modes generates a particular tempo to which a particular sonority responds.

The whole ensemble pulses like a complicated, living mechanism, as precise as it is

Erratic, like a store of clocks whose springs depend on the weight of a given mass of

Constantly condensing vapour. The tinkling of vertical strings as they strike the ground; gutters

Going glug-glug; dings, dongs and tiny gongs; all resound and multiply in simultaneous concert,

By no means monotonous, and not without a certain fluid delicacy. And in due course, as

The springs run out of steam, some of the waterwheels go on operating, though more slowly,

And more slowly, until the mechanism ticks to a halt. Then the sun comes out once more

To wipe the slate clean; the whole brilliant apparatus evaporates—it has rained.

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