Artist's Choice

 

THE BLUE MONKS OF METEORA

“Thus at some point the monk leaves the natural sphere and the spirit alone is active, all movement comes to a stop and prayers cease.”

I had travelled the long stairs to find them,
not knowing they were already departed to the sea.
The stones were cold against my feet, I heard only soft
retreating sighs, not the rhythms of their chanting.

Bells no longer sounded in the beams but I could feel
their ringing faintly in my palms.

I had travelled the long stairs to find them,
even their silence providing the cup for my lips.

It was not until I lit a candle in the Katholikon
at the Monastery of Agia Trias
that I felt their sea voices reaching this forest of stone.

And so I took a splinter of vertiginous rock,
traced my steps down over one hundred and forty stones,
found my way to Sapho’s island.

At dusk, on my balcony of Scalla Eressou
I saw their indigo robes brushing the sand while they walked
in a clustered pod, shedding vestments
to pull on their merman’s skin, now creatures of Neptune
spilling into the Aegean surf to release their watery prayers,
blessings for all the lost and incorrigible souls
as they slipped on their perfect fleshy tail.

VESUVIUS BAY, WINTER

I go down to the bay at dusk in winter,
in a strange skin not fish or woman,
and let my body walk away
from its life.
This moment here, that moment gone, no matter
that alarms ring, the mornings struggle on.
I walk into the sea with great relief
that my earthly self will not stare back at me,
that my skin, now electric with salt and pure cold
brings me to a wilder place of belonging,
in the company of seals and starfish
all eyes and whiskers, all rays of tangerine and mauve.
Here I sing to the great Neptune of this wet sanctuary,

I am here, I have arrived
without burden or restraint
ready to swim into my life
now clear, no cloud or fear, nor loss.

 

THE WISHING CROSS AT GLEANN DÁ LOCH
ST.KEVIN'S BIRD AT DUSK

What transforms the fields beyond Laragh’s green road
while near light dazzles the eyes of mares
as they bolt, then prance to the rough fenceline?
What desire there, under the moss
to soothe the tangled vines of the footpath,
leading my steps one beat forward; not untidy
or hesitant, the body reaches another day,
another continent of time.

Feral sheep with luminous coats flag the way in a chorus
of instant banter, no matter that I am led by other purpose
and see their eyes glimmer in twilit memory, reaching the
breath of St. Kevin's song, each alike in their holy cell;
make-shift pasture recalls an ancient journey
all conspire to worship.

I am only forage for the tribe,
can reach a strand of stray wool between branches
and guess that I am coveting the only longing
in St.Kevin's hands, how he reached to feel the very wool
or outline of feathers while the sparrow sang,
and cloven hooves astray in his back fields
swayed to a finer message only the fair-haired saint
could comprehend.

Upon the Wishing Cross he would bare his desire, his
recompense heavy with self-confinement, but not in this
small world did he gather the vision of beasts,
for while aloft in remote banks of the great Lough
patterns became creations, ripples on the glass water
grew like chasms in his heart,

so that he knew with better sense to live
confined with beast, and this alone
would drive him closer to his god
while people of the granite spine of Wicklow pressed on.
Years of squabble and feast could only heighten his solitude
for in his cell he reached beyond the greed and battlements
of the Tower, his own footing hewn in simple steps
circular to the landing
no roof or shelter to take his attention but upward
reaching, breathless, toward the sparrow's
arcing flight.