Graham Worden: Horyu-ji

HORYU-JI
Our touring guide has said pagodas show us fullness with emptiness made good - each slot air-tight to its wood And it is a tease of pleasure as you discover the ease with which this one guides wooden weight through weight until weightlessly absolute She moves on adding there's not a single nail how nothing at all is pegging this together — that all this towering height of five great storeys from before 680 has been down to the longstanding hang of gravity. And so we onlookers warm to thought deriving from the way it all (invariably) does conform.
GRAHAM WORDEN

HORYU-JI

Our touring guide has said
pagodas show us fullness
with emptiness made good -
each slot air-tight to its wood

And it is
a tease of pleasure
as you discover the ease
with which this one
guides wooden weight
through weight until
weightlessly absolute

She moves on adding
there's not a single nail
how nothing at all
is pegging this together —

that all this towering height
of five great storeys
from before 680
has been down
to the longstanding
hang of gravity.

And so
we onlookers warm
to thought deriving from
the way it all (invariably)
does conform.

GRAHAM WORDEN

Graham Worden was brought up in Kent, UK, but has lived and worked in Manchester for about 17 years. He has travelled quite a lot and once lived in Tokyo for two years. His poems have appeared in Agenda and PN Review, along with other anthologies such as the Lancaster Lit Festival. He sings as a tenor in The Hallé Choir.

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