IN
THE CHAPEL OF THE HIGH CROSS
Climb up to pray, that's
right
Climb up to the high
heart
Between you
Not too great—a compact
space
Where you can be as warm
Together
A little space is all you
need
As great as in your heart,
All the high cross means
is there
Opening as the Rose in
time
All it means
To reach your highest
Pray for that: to be
royal in heart
Red as ruby, fine as gold
A free spirit that can
never be sold
Bound only to love
That is for the highest.
for Laura
‘The beginning of chaos could be
the beginning of happiness...’ so I hear it,
letting go slowly all over this floor
as we sit in a circle at the dance’s end
quoting it to you aloud as we leave—
stepping off this high sacred island
with the lights of the city neon-cold beneath us
as you smile—and as the warmth we share
(that is already so wholly here)
threads itself in a flash between us
I know that it’s true
even as the world
threatens to cave in
as all the ground we know vanishes
under another wave
every cell in my body awakens
in all it knows to do
For behold, I make all
things new.
MARATHONISI
1.
Rising, its spine lifted in an upward moving graph
its uneven triangle of chalk-white limestone—
sessile trees miraculously clinging to its sides
its name resonating like a mantra
meaning a long day's journey through centuries,
a journey without end in the heart ?
The anchor chain runs out into turquoise blue water
crowded with small craft
magnetized to its larger sea cave opening
as if to a fairground ride...
shouting, echoing voices as another is swallowed
briefly by harmless darkness
And despite them
slipping into the fish-laced, deep water
your blonde head bobbing seal-sleek beside me
as we breaststroke towards the smaller one
a mere lip in the sheer cliff's underside
its silence slowly coming to meet us
the sea turning milky jade in its shadow
Then suddenly shallow enough
to tread ground in, tread
pure white gravel-shingle under feet
as we lift our leaden-dripping nakedness
wading ashore under its overhang
stooping in under its ceiling of angular
coagulated plaster in fantastic shapes
stalactite-like bulges hanging down
and hidden in its far-left corner
coated with a dust layer, melted
into a parallel seam of rock—
crystal, in a mauvish striation...
Cave-church as it seems,
and so a place to cherish a sacred stone
picking among them where the wavelets lap,
their white-gold smoothness veined as if with hair
traced under translucent skin...
And everything so clean and clear as we stand here
fresh from its innocent beginning
the tubby, rumbustious Greek children
like their ancient ancestors, playing and discovering
before their parents' call from the mustard motorlaunch
interrupts their reverie, and mine
And we finally re-enter the water
amphibious, breasting turtle-slow, back out towards
our Ariel, and the busy distracted light.
2.
No habitation here, only one tiny church
he's saying from behind the silver light wheel
gesturing around the other side of the island—
A ruined chapel where the wind blows...
but intact enough
to stop its profiteering owner
from building a hotel
to lure exclusive tourists
when nothing could seemingly stop her
this little forgotten shell did
the Church claiming the island as its own
the island claiming itself for itself, if it could
the Church having finally got something right
for the first time in 1300 years:
honouring the Creation, heaven on earth.
SCINTILLA
for Anne
Suddenly: at some point near or beyond midnight, when you've been driving
for longer than you can think clearly, the real reality occurs to you—simply
and almost overwhelmingly
that it is all happening at once, all of it: being born, dying, falling in love,
parting...grieving, killing, lying, laughing...running scared, dancing for joy,
screaming aloud, starving
...as the veil tears
—all that has been held separately for the sake of sanity, clarity,
individuality—
all of these brightly imaged scintillations like fragments of film gathering
around a single point, a single cone, shining in this darkness
this moment, this now of reality that can't be uttered because it is everything
seeing
it can only be, and only is
as all of us, one by one, choose it—
1.
He is the first in this church of riches
with its yellow brown tiles, gold altar cloth
and whitewashed walls that dutifully interred
an entire illuminated world, glossed over—
You draw your breath as you step in;
the still afternoon sunlight suspended
on the length of this weatherstained plaster,
and who is he ?
Standing twelve foot at least, giant
the unmistakeable shape of the head
centre-parted hair and trimmed beard
holding, what ? A bulging bagpipe-like
wineskin creched across his chest
and beneath
his midriff dissolving as if in water,
then his knees reappearing...
and the child he is carrying
becoming 'as heavy as the world'
as one child who could save us all
a child older and younger than time
who has kept his root in Paradise,
known by all Children of the Light.
2.
Did you know the story ?
Christopher (we are told) was a giant
perhaps meaning simply a very tall man
who ached to serve the greatest king in the world.
We may suppose his intial motive was
ambition, or sheer naivety ?—or both.
He meets a hermit who preaches to him
about a very different kind of king
urging him to live on the edge of a river
a very dangerous, fast-moving river
and to help folk crossing it.
The River of Life, we might imagine.
And there, was he waiting for a sign ?
He was living as we all are—
without quite knowing why.
Then one day he's carrying a child in his arms
above his waist, above the current
and as he puts him down on the other side
someone grows as tall as him—
someone is meeting him eye to eye—
someone with light all around his body
and who is saying to him: I am as you are.
Christopher, carry
them as you have me !
3.
A prophylactic against the worst fate:
sudden death without confession...
seven hundred years ago—and now ?
A giant cradling a child, any child, in his arms
this saint to travellers, who is all of our fathers,
the good father we may never have known—
and larger than life, come back to remind us
that it's only by daring to cross the great water
that we find our true way home.
How are we going to break
the rule of fear ?
Torturers are at it
everywhere
Worker bees and fools deny
the chains that bind
and squeeze us dry
We have no time, no time, no time
And no faith
only in our own creation
In the heart we constrain
before it shakes us open—
Even as we long to be broken,
and return like a river to the sea...
So teach us life
and to breathe again, believe again
That only the best in us
can survive
aspiring to its inward source
No hand of force
can make us dare
the bravest we can be
Only the spirit
that came in freedom
And only the love that knows
that this is its day, life, moment
among all the barren stars
to blaze its name.