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sky,

Swarms billow over bogs,

The air comes alive

With singing, buzzing, courting, hunting, pollinating.

Each step we take tells us

What is underneath our feet:

Grass, ice, rock,

A swaying bridge above the mist

That rises from the chasm

To cling to our ankles.

I do not know how far

We are destined to travel.

But I trust this world

To keep unfolding space and time

For our journey of exploration,

For as long as we are here.

4. Siren song

…you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them.

Homer (translated by Samuel Butler)

Sirens have two kinds of songs

To lure those who come near them,

To bind the minds of travelers

With snares of longing.

Songs of adventure and of glory,

Of giving names

To new lands, to new creatures.

These songs promise freedom

From the tedium

Of familiar words,

From the confines

Of the cradle, the field, the hearth,

From the gray stones of the graveyard,

From the moss that steals over the names

Of a long line of ancestors.

Songs of warmth,

Of embracing arms and sheltering walls.

These songs promise to turn

The terrors, the regrets

Of past voyages,

The uncharted vastness of the future

Into words, into lusty tales

That can be traded

For a hearty tankard of ale

A seat close to the fireplace,

The eager gaze of a rapt listener.

5. Nightmares and their riders

I have nightmares now.

I dream that something happened to you…

Anastasya Shepherd

A nightmare is a kind of horse:

A powerful creature, wild and willful.

Approach her with respect, with skill,

For she may bite, kick or rear;

She may leave the one who dares to touch her

Broken, paralyzed, dead.

Yet she is capable of learning to accept a rider.

Balancing on the back of a nightmare,

Riding a dark dream,

We can leap much farther than is humanly possible.

A nightmare can carry us across an abyss.

6. Trains and their dreamers

The train stitches together images,

like a demented alliterating seamstress…

Anastasya Shepherd

The distant clatter

Of the predawn train

Quilts the quiet air,

Pulls the thread of the whistle

Long, long, l-o-ong

Through the mist.

Between sleeping and waking

I dream.

I piece together

Stations, timetables, tickets

To choose my own destination,

To fashion a different self.

7. Synaesthesia

There are times in life when synaesthesia becomes inescapable,

when water smells like lead and feels blue…

Anastasya Shepherd

Escape is possible.

Search the floor of your perception,

Feel for the hidden trapdoor,

The moment of synaesthesia.

Pry it open,

Heave it up on its rusty hinges.

Plunge into the blue.

Roll up, solid, dull,

Like a ball of lead.

Sink through the water,

Pass through the gradations

Of the shimmering light

Deepening into darkness,

As the shadows thicken.

Let go of all

That has been visible.

Feel the weight of the ocean

Press you to the bottom.

Smell your own fear.

Taste the bile of loss.

Rise, rise like an air bubble.

Push through the cool resistance

Until you are released,

Until you burst into nothingness.

Let the freedom of empty space

Flood your senses with joy.

8. The Age of Discovery

You make choices.

Those choices make you.

Then you make choices.

Always a spiral – upwards or downwards – it's your choice.

Anastasya Shepherd

Having circumnavigated our world,

I realize that it is not a sphere,

But a spiral.

I am back where I started from.

The path ahead is as unknown

As it was before the journey.

But you, my friend,

Who steadfastly stayed here

At the origin,

How did you find out?

Or was it clear?

Was it clear all along?

Theological Questions

Circling the pulsing center of their universe

The fish are passing through sunlight and shadow.

Their existence is framed, circumscribed, and protected

By the carved marble rim of the fountain’s basin.

Do they fear or worship the hand that feeds them,

Removes their dead, repairs the stonework;

The hand that brought their ancestors here

From another world in a wooden bucket?

Can they see that the hand moves more slowly now,

That the bony fingers have grown stiff with age?

Portrait of a room

Now, as a human life in this room

Is ebbing,

The attitudes of the objects

Become apparent.

The rocking chair

Stretches forth its arm-rests,

Ready to embrace, to lull,

To enthrall with the stories

Of a long life-time.

The mirror turns a blind eye

To all that is happening here,

Gazing intently

Into its own distant dreams.

The hospital bed knows

That it is seen as ugly,

Unwanted in every room that it enters.

Yet it goes about its work

Reliably and with care,

Keeping the patient

As comfortable as it is able.

It does its best to be unobtrusive.

The edge of the crystal vase

Glitters hard in the corner.

Being confined to a sick-room,

Enduring the dusty monotony

Of pathetic fake flowers —

This is not what it’s made for!

The curtains hold back the darkness,

Soften the mid-day light.

Catching the slightest motion of the air,

They stir like wings,

Like the white sails of a ship,

Sensing the wind, the space

Of a great invisible world.

Orbit

The Earth falls towards the Sun.

There are no elephants, no turtles,

No hand of Providence

For the world to rest on.

What keeps the planet in orbit

Is its unwavering observance

Of “the laws of nature”.

But what is inside those words?

Dead force?

A command backed by fear?

A solemn promise given long ago?

Or a bitter-sweet journey

On a freely chosen path?

Creation stories

To Orna Greenberg

In the story

Of the first creation

The Divine power

Lifts the supple clay,

To mold His image,

To imprint Her likeness.

The Divine breath

Enters the human shape,

Calls it to life.

The potter’s hands

Explore a lump of clay,

Stroke, press in

The hollow of the vessel,

Form the plump lip,

Extend the graceful neck.

The artist dips the brush

Now into paint, now into water.

An image blossoms:

Ocher and sienna blend;

The colors thicken —

Shadows outline the round rim,

The colors thin —

Light curves down the glazed flank.

You

Lift the clay jar,

Gaze at the painting,

Read these lines,

You

Have the power

To breathe into a creation

Awareness, thought, meaning,

Life.

Creation

It is possible to escape,

To hide from the darkness:

Squeeze your eyes shut,

Press hard on the eyelids.

Circles of phantom fire

Will blaze in front of your staring pupils.

Let us trade: I would barter

My past, my memory,

For a handful of stars,

For the dimmest of constellations…

But you drive a hard bargain

By simply refusing to exist.

In a blind rage

I splinter my heart into kindling,

Pour gasoline,

Set the whole mess aflame,

Watch as it burns to ashes.

But it keeps on beating,

It keeps on beating in the darkness.

There is nothing to do but sit.

Stare into the void.

Read the blanks on the empty page,

Over and over,

Till they form a pattern,

Till the repetition yields a meaning:

“Let there be darkness, for there is.”

There is darkness.

There is darkness.

There is darkness.

All there is, is darkness.

Until slowly, slowly

Contours form,

A faint outline emerges:

“Let there also be light.”

Realities

we create