the slack and swell surface of a saltmirror sea, salinity’s similitude and sublimity, a song for submersion. (a scintellant foam shimmers under a summer sun, that with foreign intensity cracks colour, scatters prisms. from the shadowy deep, a rhythm is risen)
june afternoon, auricupride, copper and gold combined, a pouring light that crystallises everything it settles on, petal and penumbra. the seconds are stretching, the summer is singing, and i’ll go walking and gather its grace notes. a silver willow dips its emerald arms, pendalogues, sends patterns rippling in still water. the lily of the valley adorns itself now in lustrous pale green armour. the campanula bells are each their own ancient mirror. june’s a crescendoing chorus of colour. quodlibet.
sunday morning, silver pebbles. the rhododendrons are raining petals now the dawn’s a racing stream of light as the stars go sailing out of sight.
the rain falls as sheets and shivers, the scrape and pound of wave on stone. the wind is whistling through the harbour, halyards clattering, anchors thrown. * a stormy june day diary, the beach: plunge, spill, surge. crescent, curl, submerge. the sun is climbing cliffs and clearing mists and the sea is promising to make you more alive than anything else. an iribarren breaking into beauty. and the cormorants know it, without needing to be told, they’re at home in the waves.
the june sky at dawn is dewy-skinned son of poseidon, celestia sea thrift and rust and a salt-scent wind whispering through the wisteria which rattles the driftwood draped over the door son of poseidon, celestia bleached white by the sun, and brought here from the shore whispering through the wisteria now the may-shade flowers, under harp string showers son of poseidon, celestia turn transparent at the touch of these trembling hours whispering through the wisteria
bank holiday monday, and the sky appears to me almost splintered sphere, thin and streaked with high spears. i watch them twist and twirl and pierce. the softer, lower, clouds collect, too, and they look a little like sweet alyssum, lobularia maritima, countless clustered bunches of the smallest white and wheeling flowers, perfuming perhaps that palest blue, touching transparency before falling in showers. * above all that, the veiled stars. treasure chest filled with jewels over-spilling, or else many-coloured and shattered stained glass, cathedral window broken, its splendour scattered now all about a sanctuary where the incense is silver vapour and outside the walls, rhythm and pulse stretch darkness forever. * coffee steam, and two doves, deferential they’ll drink from the bird bath in the garden. again, the laburnum is lapping up the last of the light, stabs of gold and pouring flame for petals, peridot leaves and drops of sun, each a gentle proclamation, or perhaps a harp string plucked. fireflies caught and charged with beauty. * multa minuta modis multis per inane videbis …
the laburnums are draped in golden chains, yesterday’s ash washes away with the rain. spring lies beneath you now. and the night is silverpoint, and starlight. and the roses in the garden, are constellated, bone-white, as your skin turns to mother-of-pearl and pale flower and your eyes, sparkling-dark, are drinking the hour.
under a cupola and a willow tree i watch whispering couples holding hands and walking quietly around cloister gardens. all i can hear is the sound of the wind, and from time to time, sunday service cathedral choirs singing latin hymns, or else chanting their sacred devotions, under starry vaults and sails. for a moment, i’m crying, it’s surprising. in the courtyard, the cherry plums are small, and crooked, sharp branches sparkling with sap, like frosted sugar crystals, petals as snow.
a walk in the park, a picnic on the hill, there are bluebells growing in the shade, birds building nests where the willow meets the water. the wind still has a touch of winter to it, i think, pale white cherry plum petals falling like snow. i lie down on the grass, daisies and dandelions dotted about, they’re drinking up the sun. the touch of now-not-quite-as-cold earth against crinkled coat against chiffon the colour of april rain clouds against bare skin. i drink the last of my karak tea, pull the hat over my eyes, see speckled light through woven straw sparkling, and once more, allow my thoughts their drifting, as they might decide. to love and loss and longing, and then to language and what might lie beyond all that, key to the cage or else divine diaphanous veil or maybe it’s all just easy enchantment. i’m so very uncertain about a lot, these days, but one thing i do know is that if i don’t have faith in there being some sort of …
enchanted, frightened, in equal measure. eloi, eloi. edges of the wild, evergreens, powerlines. a little too old-fashioned, english girl impractically nostalgic. abalone shells as altar of eros, ink stained fingers planting tomatoes and irises. foxgloves, forget-me-nots, pressed into the pages of heavy books and forgotten forever. feed the hummingbirds before breakfast, they’ll hover about the kitchen window, sing the songs that appear as they wish. mint tea in a mason jar, mountain on my chest. eloi, eloi. march 2019: saturday evening. lemon drop daffodils, saint julian’s day, heavenly protector of wanderers far from home and looking to find safe lodging. old man’s beard, traveller’s joy. english pear scented candles crackle. shadow and glow. earlier this afternoon*, probably the last of this winter’s snow, although it was eleven degrees and i don’t entirely understand how. tonight, though, now, raindrops race one another from the top to the bottom of my apartment windows. lavender’s burning, lilac perfume. a spoonful of elderberry syrup, a two cup teapot, i fall asleep under stars on the ceiling. the next morning, and …
