Solitude
Solitude, through whom are you asking?
Still all alone and at this late hour.
Ask yourself through whom you are asking!
Hey! What is the most important thing to all of you?
Come and find what you are looking for
My happiness and my human presence
Solitude of my sorrows!
The river horse that bolted
Has finally reached
The ocean.
A Million Angels
A million angels on the point of a pin
A million words at the tip of my pen.
A million sharks eyes surface
In this estuary
To devour me
As I land
Upon the tumbled stones of home
Wet, resting, shining.
Red sandstone
Green weed
Sucking mussels
Fragments of brick
Slates for skimming
Mica, quartz
Stones with holes
Or with alphabets on them.
Broken shells
Where the sea asks
Pieces of glass
To return
The grains of sand they contain
Gathered, melted and blown
To catch the eye of light.
Jam jars.
Marbles.
Blue Glass.
Green glass.
Mosaics.
Sunny stained glass in autumn churches.
Mirrors,
Mirrors,
I love the best
They teach me
That I exist
Like words.
In his Padua garden
Galileo
Shaking like a leaf
Sharpens his focus
On Saturn’s rings.
A million angels on the point of a pin
A million words at the tip of my pen.
A telescope is a time machine
In 1996 Hubble astronomers
Focused on a minute spot of darkness between stars
The size of a grain of sand
150 orbits, 276 photographs and
Layers of light superimposed
Revealed
A further 40 billion galaxies racing away from us
As the universe expands.
Therefore darkness does not exist
And stars go on forever.
I land on grains of sand
Where spring sunlight
Shines on broken crystal.
A prism dances on the bone of a whale:
I listen to her ghost singing
Under the midday Angelus.
Angel Gabriel
Well moonlit and dressed in rags
Annunciation of Los Reyes
Opens the door to the Light
That was coming
Along the street.
Archangel Gabriel
Between white lilies and sunrise
Grandchild of La Giralda
Was about to pay a visit
In his embroidered waistcoat
Dark crickets beat.
Angel Gabriel!
Here I am
With three nails of happiness.
Your blazing radiance
Opens jasmine flowers
Above my burning heart.
God save you, Annunciation!
Brown as a berry
You will have a son more handsome
Than the stems of the breeze.
Angel Gabriel of my eyes!
Little Gabriel of my life!
To feel you I dream
Of an armchair of pinks.
God save you Annunciation!
Well moonlit and dressed in rags
Your son will have on his breast
A beauty spot and three wounds.
Ah! Angel Gabriel of Radiances!
Little Gabriel of my life.
God save you Annunciation!
Mother of a hundred dynasties
Deserts light your eyes
Landscapes of horsemen.
With a vibrant voice, annunciation
Three green almond cakes
Quiver in his little voice.
Look! Angel Gabriel is leaving!
Ascending the staircase of the air.
The stars of the night revolve eternally.
Riddles
If I was an Amsterdam tulip:
If I was a Wellington boot:
If I was a sad sack of garbage:
If I was a gun would I shoot?
If life was a bowl of blue cherries;
If death was a mere state of mind;
If hell wasn’t heaven and heaven was seven;
I think that by now I’d have died.
If I was a pure drop of water;
If I was a daisy at dawn;
If I was a legend that never has ended;
Would I have the strength to go on?
If angels weren’t devils I’d listen
To the prayer of the bone on the beach;
As the forests decrease and the poisons increase
Is redemption so far beyond reach?
If the circle was squared I’d be dancing;
As spirals unfolded in space;
As the universe spins and it never begins
In infinity, I rest my case.
In the church wall a stone holds a larva;
That is three hundred million years old;
I touch it, in leafy green shadows;
Therein lies the alchemist’s gold.
Old riddles are written on rune stones;
Does the stairway go up and not down?
Now the glorious waterfalls roaring
Can never be heard in the town.
If I was a salmon in water;
If I was a flame in a fire;
If I was an oak tree in Ireland;
Then would I not feel such desire?
The yearning for learning is sacred
As the scrolls in the library burn;
The sinking of civilisations
Into dust where we all must return.
By seven concerns of the mountain;
By the seven bright books of the dead;
By the seven swift sisters of heaven;
I pray for the decades ahead.
But if life was an eggshell in heaven;
Isis tapped with a spoon for her child;
We would all then be smashed as the galaxies crashed
And the savage sad Joker he smiled.