Poems

The Waves on Chios

As when a man who has been dementing for years –
old friends burst into tears
when they see the ruins of his mind
old lovers in despair
look up the rules for Dignitas –

when he dies at last, gently, in deep sleep
and one by one for the rest of us
the memories sweep back,
how he listened, how he believed in dialogue
and held warmth in his heart to the end –

so, looking down from the cliff
I watch the wild Greek ocean-going waves
with their cargo of flotsam and salt
roil around the rocks, fan up in spray, spread their all-
embracing murmur on the shore, and never stop.

Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth

The first day he cut rosewood for the back,
bent sycamore into ribs and made a belly
     of mahogany. Let us go early to the vineyards
     and see if the vines have budded.
The sky was blue over the Jezreel valley
     and the gilt dove shone
above the Church of the Annunciation.
The second day, he carved a camel-bone base
     for the fingerboard.
I sat down under his shadow with delight.

 The third day he made a nut of sandalwood,
and a pick-guard of black cherry.
     He damascened a rose of horn
     with arabesques 
as lustrous as under-leaves of olive beside the sea. 
     I have found him whom my soul loves.
He inlaid the sound-hole with ivory swans,
each pair a valentine of entangled necks,
     and fitted tuning pegs of apricot
to give a good smell when rubbed.

The fourth was a day for cutting
high strings of camel-gut. His left hand
     shall be under my head.
     For the lower course, he twisted copper strings
pale as tarmac under frost. 
     He shall lie all night between my breasts.
The fifth day he laid down varnish.
Our couch is green and the beams of our house
     are cedar and pine. Behind the neck
he put a sign to keep off the Evil Eye.

My beloved is a cluster of camphire
in the vineyards of Engedi
     and I watched him whittle an eagle-feather, a plectrum
     to celebrate the angel of improvisation
     who dwells in clefts on the Nazareth ridge
where love waits. And grows, if you give it time.
Set me as a seal upon your heart.
On the sixth day the soldiers came
     for his genetic code.
We have no record of what happened.

 

I was queuing at the checkpoint to Galilee.
I sought him and found him not.
     He’d have been in his open-air workshop -
     I called but he gave me no answer -  
the self-same spot
     where Jesus stood when He came from Capernaum
to teach in synagogue, and townsfolk tried
to throw Him from the rocks. Until the day break
     and shadows flee away
I will get me to the mountain of myrrh.

 

The seventh day we set his wounded hands
around the splinters. Come with me from Lebanon,
     my spouse, look from the top
    of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens.
On the eighth there were no more days.
I took a class in carpentry and put away the bridal rug.
We started over
with a child’s ’oud  bought on eBay.
     He was a virtuoso of the ’oud
and his banner over me was love.

(from Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth)

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