al-Matin

I

We hummed perseverance
into our hearts, step by step
with the breath through our bodies,
bowing long before the bower
and bringing this way-ward to wait
at the head of wisdom’s table,
telling those who wish to come
that it is time.

No-one responded. Nothing
but me and my mind
sitting bemused.

But then a bolt burned the sky
so bright even closed eyes
could not help but see it
and so, the first visitor:
light embodied and ecstatic,
echoing her long journey
just to be
here.

Hardly had she arrived then appeared,
as if from nowhere, brother dark
brooding by my right side,
saying nothing and seeming
to suck his seat into somewhere
deeper than this dialogue can say.

Third, in answer to the thunder
now thrumming through us,
a single cricket calling by the door,
announcing its alternative
take on time and the tower of song
its sliding legs can signify
if you dare slow down.

II

I turned to the trinity
and told them the name,
only to see them shake their heads and laugh.

Light began:
I have been stepping through
endless space forever, this way, then that.
I am what it is
to lift yourself through emptiness
with an electric push and pull
that sees both poles and powers
a way between.

Then dark:
I have walked away from where I came
since that very first moment.
I am distance,
so do not think that this damnation
can be borne without the will
to keep wandering on,
waiting always to return.

Finally the cricket:
I have been singing this
since long before you called,
never once stopping
through the endless summers
we spent together in that garden,
before you grasped for grace
as if it didn’t grow within.

Now silence at the table
as I grow tired of holding the image,
and hurry back to my heart
who holds this still forever.

III

From deep within that nowhere,
the nightingale with his rallying cry
to resonate with what is gathered
and, though I’ve turned the table off,
as he says it - a huge strike simultaneous
with the deep sky-word I can never write
and, held for a moment (for all eternity)
I can see in that fiery flash
every face, stretching far into the distance.

Every human soul taking every single step,
here to sing together and persevere
through the storm because we sense
there is no severance, no separation,
just a slow and steady stream
to which we all succumb.

Traces

Be the change

See sameness in difference