Why not envision a new eco-poetics grounded in a heritage thousands of years old which upholds that everything in the universe is sacred?
    Francisco X. Alarcón


Space, time and Borges now are leaving me …
    J L Borges

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of the personality.
    T S Eliot

One does not often think of the tripartite goddess who gave her blessed name to Ireland -  Éire, Banba, Fódla - not to mention other goddesses who have left their trace on the landscape, Danu of the Paps of Danu for instance.

Devotional poetry in India goes by the name of bhakti. In the heel of the hunt, a bhakta does not really adore or pine for any god or  goddess; as with Mirabai’s love affair with Krishna, or Muktabai singing her own glistening Self; what is sought and what is praised is the brightness of eternal brightness, our shared Self, knowing neither birth nor death.

Some words in this poem sequence are ‘shaded’ to allow for another reading of a line, or a faint echo, a game much cherished by the Celtic poets of yore. Thus, the reader sees the word as the world when written as world and encounters  bhakti invocations such as ma (mother) hidden in the word mad!

Life, I stand on your bank’s edge, frightened of a
slip that might bring a struggle I could not win.
You flow by with no effort. I envy you.
You swirl as if some magic occurs within your darkest green
―  the colour of the elm’s fullness during twilight.
You flow forever, past. I have little to offer but
three silver coins and my hope that you will accept them
with my anguished prayers.
Let them sink through your swiftness to your stillness.
Let them join others’ gifts
to clothe your bed in a radiant coverlet you have earned.

The cobbled stones, awash by moon
The drunken laddies that sip and swoon.
To gaze upon the midnight beaut
Would parish ones will to that of Newts.

Thus lady’s hair does fall much like
A waterfall of pure moonlight.
With eyes of jewel and crystal light
Sets ones soul ablaze and heart, bright.

With opulent lips, does she possess
Such voice of tinkling bells distress.
With wisps of silver at loves cheeks
Gold flecks do twinkle at brows peek.

To tame such beauty is hopeless venture
Too many a drunk lad, sweet and tender.
To gaze upon midnights supple dream
Is to be more than merely heard, but seen.