BY THE SYBIL

Yes I’m sure that whether we like it or not

our innermost gaze is turned

to the cave and the rock,

to their maze filled with vast

preparatory silence.

Now we are facing it and waiting

for the gesture of words.

It is even more silent, the mountain grass

where the rock lies.

And when the sun hides

the green seems to have absorbed all cries,

short stalks in the wind, each in its berth,

impenetrable and alert.

Rough essentials, a shower of rain

and soon the rock is dry again

and the grass greener in the cleansed hush.

Since it’s midday we stop

and unpack our lunch and sit on the rock

and eat and digress in the wind,

talking.. we love its insubstantial stream.

Silence is deeper after we have talked

when we wait a little before resuming our walk.

Silence is the rock and the wind

and the very words we forgot, or can’t quite admit

we were waiting for.

The words within the words,

the riddle we would cherish,

the ultimate mirage maybe,

the swarming clap of a stony outburst.

Cows are grazing in the pasture nearby,

we hear bells clang in the chapping jaws’ lull.

Our dog is crouched, enjoying the grass,

munching stalks with meditative nonchalance.

The rock doesn’t speak,

the cave moans in its draughts,

we hardly expected anything different

but we indulge by the stone, maybe this

is the only purpose we have time for,

wind bending the grass,

the large invisible sweeping hand,

while  clouds’ shadows sail

and stalks thread the gusts

in trimming cells like tinkling bells,

flicker-lit, in and out of the land,

on moss and mulch,

ready to hook our next

scattering selves.
And there'll be only the wait.

WHISPERED PRAYER IN A GIORGIO DE CHIRICO'S SQUARE

How deep the blade of the North wind.
How it empties the silver square.
It shatters every rind
with the loneliness of nowhere.

Let these words stare
like the grains of a last dust,
to that cone of light, run, over there,
the dream corner you trust.