by Mark Terrill

If you can navigate the subway station in Hamburg–Altona
climb the stairs and walk through the train station
among the infinite flux of faces and figures
in that arbitrary barrage of citizens
rushing through the early–morning hustle and bustle
and come out on the other side still feeling good about it all —
with your compassion for humanity still intact —
then you don’t even need to read The Flower Garland Sutra
and can go into the park and sit on a bench
like Antoine Roquentin in Sartre’s Nausea
staring at the gnarly roots of a chestnut tree
where they disappear into the earth
and for each and every lack of meaning
there will suddenly be a new word in a new language
in which you are completely and totally fluent
and something like gratitude will well up in your throat
as sweet as the nectar going down the gullet
of that red–and–green–shimmering hummingbird
hovering in mid–air over there by those bright pink flowers
finely dusted with carbon particles from the diesel exhaust
of the trains and busses and other rumbling traffic
just on the other side of the ivy–covered wall
which separates you from not a single other thing.

by Mark Terrill

The black and white of it all;
ancient majestic oak trees
blasted over in the storm —
entire rows of birch and poplar
knocked down flat across
undulating country roads and fields.
But the magpies’ nest high in the ash
is still there — and the magpies too —
I hear them as I come up the driveway,
reconciled by their presence —
the diametrical opposition
of their two–tone color–scheme
(with that iridescent shimmer
of metallic cobalt blue),
gracefully united in the
complementary relationship
that some munificent god
might have given them —
their clacking tempestuous chatter —
one–on–one, back–and–forth,
black–and–white —
ringing in my ears like some
avian Scarlatti sonata
swiftly hacked out on a
vintage Underwood typewriter.

by Christine De Luca

When a day is too short to forge
a history, a shared archive,
she stumbles on boxfuls, unrecorded

When time concertinas
plays its bitter–sweet melody
she hymns its demeanour

When a river crosses her way
hesitates at the ford
her longing is unsayable

When a boundary offers only boulders
no intricate infill
she is edgy, merely cajoled

When blossom fades on the bramble
but the fruit is yet to set
her blood is clamorous

When meadows are buttercupped
and ditches swathed in bog cotton
her gloom gets a comeuppance

When waymarkers are blurred
and the path untrodden
she is of the plants, burgeoning

When ghost trees shimmer in twilight
and bats perturb the shadows
she is content, reconciled.

by Christine De Luca

The architecture of time
          Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, Firenze

Jasmine is already fading on the wall and
a waxing gibbous moon is a pale reminder tracking
a still blue sky. It is almost time to close the gates.
All of us with feet of clay must make the journey back.

The westering sun has thrown its light on marble,
green and white, subtling through restless centuries.
Plainchant has marked the architecture of the days.
The choir are busy gleaning honey for their potions.

The eye is caught in geometry: fine simple line,
repeating pattern; but then by horns of beasts
with wings, fantastic tails as from some mythic time,
some dream of Revelation to end all dreams.

In pride of place, the zodiac star signs lie, inlaid
in stone, awaiting summer solstice. The white lace
of the crab will glisten on St. John the Baptist’s Day,
their patron saint lit up among the constellations.

Above it all an ancient Christ stares down with Mary,
icon–faced, and symbols of the saints in gold:
an eagle, bull and lion. For heaven is a garden
and the walls of Florence cannot hold this moment.

How the monks must love it when we disappear
and they can make their worship shape the silence;
address the evening’s slender cypresses, distant hills,
the last call of roosting birds; see the moon brighten.