Four poems. By John Welch. 1. 'IN RIOTS OF THE UPPER AIR' For Fawzi Karim YOUR POEM, HERE it halts in English And they say the language speaks you. So is this a trap? As for me I seek to stretch out in these spaces Made by exile's peculiar travel As if I too spent my life between here and there, Between the blossom and its fall. Walking out of the dentist's and into the street My tongue explores the damage. I'm stiffer with age walking around in a city. Can someone tell me the name of the procession Passing these trees As if they had just landed on the earth? Trying to discover the secret of their balance, A certain silence springs out from each trunk As somewhere another bomber Lifts, slow as a statue, away from its plinth of shadow -- Another dictator past his sell-by date, A government discovering righteousness? Being shaken with useless rages We wonder how not to do harm Like trailing a broken branch. Here is a bush of white flowers in flattish clusters, A harsh honeyish smell that I recognise But cannot name. Unreal the hiss of blossom. AND THIS HERON, he is no angel In his cloak of wings -- coming down To the pond in my garden each morning He invites himself to breakfast. But those are my frogs Though I must admit I feel privileged sometimes At his lofty arrival here Whom hunger guides each morning But surely too large