Silly wisps of her raven hair flutter
In the winds of the long-short corridor of summer;
They snivel with the whims of cosseted sots,
Sinking in the futile harmony of winking beasts.
Pretty whiskers, soft with the ague of age, and lean
From frazzled grey.
A halo of white cotton crowns her fine dome, revealing little.
She paints the inky images of Al Hirschfeld —
Among whited, slit, black smuts needed for art’s emphases.
The greens of the season, lush and dreamy,
Stand witness before us two —I, limping hard
From the roasting east; she, from the broad
Corners of a lean north.
We meet at the navel of the earth.
She posts a reflection of a travelling zealot, dragged
By rains and heated sods.
She must have been weary with prayers and demented,
Silent laments, for her eyes bored into the fragile
Energy sifting itself from the raw power of NOW.
I follow her silent drama —less words and impaling stares.
Time stands still in all rural dumbness, with the checking hush of
The sacristy on wartimes.
Quiet reigns with the immortal grace of planarians.
A pound of silence sells with strident gavel-sound,
Hammered thickly on the floating beam of an unstinting market.
“Be healed”, she clamours,
Her long, bony fingers running up to her sinciput,
And quickly down to her chest.
Her voice is frozen —embalmed for life.
As she trudges on, words of the paternoster grease her tight
Lips, streaming with ease, like digitized lyrics, to my listening ears.
Amen!
I wish I had David’s lyre!