Home
Hours before the dawn. Beyond the back wall of the garden, dark trees by the railway tracks sway, leafless still in a soughing night breeze. Beyond the trees- lights, red and yellow, of houses, prison towers, and St Peter’s church. With every breath of wind, the branches shake, breaking up the paths of the light, making it to flicker. In and out, glitters the light .
Here, I see generation upon generation, a constant of inconstancy. Flowing, but flowing nowhere. A new world born, glimmering then vanishing away with every mortal sentience, like a bath of stars in a firmament of suffering. Winking in and out, returning in a pattern of change and recurrence- magnificent and dreadful. Painful and beautiful. Changeless in it’s changing. Brief and eternal.
And so, back to darkness in my garden. A fox coughs nearby- clinking at the water bowl. My memory stirs, and rising- I see the faces of dead friends. In whispers to this dim lit hour-I utter. To this empty night-
“I miss you, old friends!
-can you hear me?
I miss you. I was careless”
Calling then to the spirit of the fox, I ask-
“how does the world arise?”
She answers–
‘watchful gloom, to distant light,
thrilling through the thickets,
Fresh, a night breeze sighs’
Myself, I remember in verse;
1
‘I see that other world
under time’s eye, far and near,
The city- dark, the granite and ground
from the mind’s triple casement appear’
2
‘I see the dome of sparkling stars,
life’s true water, incomparably blue,
I sense the violet cloud arise,
the endless story,
old and new’
3
‘Here, I see, an ocean of life,
rising forever, from out the Dark Sea.
In cycles unending, breathing men and beasts,
as a pillar of wind on the morning air’
4
‘Here, I see a black watered pool
with a fire at its centre, blazing without fuel
Up in a whirling tower, worlds rise and fall,
as sparks against the pitch vault of night’
5
‘With, or without the bells,
Death is ever near
Absence to presence,
Again to again
Returning home
Without fear’