Sunday, February 9, 2014

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.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

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.