4d
THE LANGUAGE OF WATER
You wait by the lake
alone
except for your self
&
your reflected self
as if the landscape
dreamt you up.
Your thoughts a flock of birds
scattered across the failing light.
Clouds laugh
run along the ground
on tiny unseen feet.
Trees stand on their heads
wriggling their toes in the air
& you
become as two
both real & unreal
as if a living
dream.
You hum
Pachabel's Canon
as sun & horizon
listen.
Not bad for a human
they both agree.
It's as if
I need a key
to enter this magical
dimension
as if I have to
invent one
...a magical one.
I take a little stone
whisper to it the secrets
of flight
and teach it how to say: "Splash! "
in the language of water.
The little stone
transformed with its new knowledge
does as it is told
shatters
this mirror world
opens
the dream
and I enter
bewitched
as any fairytale
Prince
my voice
calling your sweet name
with longing
you turn
& we embrace
kiss
& look upon ourselves
as the dream
remakes itself
stitching itself
together with silence.
An old artist
(unknown to us then)
places us
the lovers
at the center
of his composition
adds this
final brushstroke
and pleased
with his efforts
folds up
his chair
packs up
his paints & easel
smiles at our
kisses
wishes
us a goodnight
and is gone
eaten by the twilight.
Our laughter
frail & fragile
lingering on the night air
playing peek-a-boo
with the moonlight.
*
I was ill and in chronic pain and had just got off a late shift...I was sick and tired of being sick and tired'...long sleepless night...dead on my feet and this Serbian gentle man asking for directions made me raise my eyes to the sky and being given the gift to see and let the world shine through me. Human contact and a heavenly body reminding me that just being alive in this moment...despite all the pain and my life unravelling...was what counted.
He was delighted to know that I knew my Popa(and that he was one of my favourite poets)and of The Battle of Kosovo. As we walked he reeled off verse after epic verse and I had the immense pleasure of hearing it in Serbian. I couldn't understand it but the music was in the sound. in He was a lovely man and so giving...and the final gift of the moon was sublime. His love for his wife and child glowed within him like a spiritual fire. I had lost my wife due to my paralysis( "I don't want to be with no paralyzed guy!") and this saddened him greatly.
I felt like the Ancient Mariner inadvertently blessing the sea snakes and being blessed in turn.
"Their beauty and their happiness.
He blesseth them in his heart."
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
"The spell begins to break."
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
You wait by the lake
alone
except for your self
&
your reflected self
as if the landscape
dreamt you up.
Your thoughts a flock of birds
scattered across the failing light.
Clouds laugh
run along the ground
on tiny unseen feet.
Trees stand on their heads
wriggling their toes in the air
& you
become as two
both real & unreal
as if a living
dream.
You hum
Pachabel's Canon
as sun & horizon
listen.
Not bad for a human
they both agree.
It's as if
I need a key
to enter this magical
dimension
as if I have to
invent one
...a magical one.
I take a little stone
whisper to it the secrets
of flight
and teach it how to say: "Splash! "
in the language of water.
The little stone
transformed with its new knowledge
does as it is told
shatters
this mirror world
opens
the dream
and I enter
bewitched
as any fairytale
Prince
my voice
calling your sweet name
with longing
you turn
& we embrace
kiss
& look upon ourselves
as the dream
remakes itself
stitching itself
together with silence.
An old artist
(unknown to us then)
places us
the lovers
at the center
of his composition
adds this
final brushstroke
and pleased
with his efforts
folds up
his chair
packs up
his paints & easel
smiles at our
kisses
wishes
us a goodnight
and is gone
eaten by the twilight.
Our laughter
frail & fragile
lingering on the night air
playing peek-a-boo
with the moonlight.
*
I was ill and in chronic pain and had just got off a late shift...I was sick and tired of being sick and tired'...long sleepless night...dead on my feet and this Serbian gentle man asking for directions made me raise my eyes to the sky and being given the gift to see and let the world shine through me. Human contact and a heavenly body reminding me that just being alive in this moment...despite all the pain and my life unravelling...was what counted.
He was delighted to know that I knew my Popa(and that he was one of my favourite poets)and of The Battle of Kosovo. As we walked he reeled off verse after epic verse and I had the immense pleasure of hearing it in Serbian. I couldn't understand it but the music was in the sound. in He was a lovely man and so giving...and the final gift of the moon was sublime. His love for his wife and child glowed within him like a spiritual fire. I had lost my wife due to my paralysis( "I don't want to be with no paralyzed guy!") and this saddened him greatly.
I felt like the Ancient Mariner inadvertently blessing the sea snakes and being blessed in turn.
"Their beauty and their happiness.
He blesseth them in his heart."
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
"The spell begins to break."
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
