Lionel Abrahams

Side by side

ENTRIES UNDER ‘RELIGION’

(ON A FORM)

        i
Emptiness
to the power of space-time
spirals in continuum round
and in upon the particular
atoms of my memorious
electric mood.

        ii
In the modest church
of the nasturtium bed
the choir of leaves
on the mere stalks'
green intelligence
acknowleges the sun.

        iii
Running alongside the bicycle
the young mother
teaching her child
the brave trick of balance
projects his ride
into his own space-time -
enacting such prayer
as steers the stars.

        iv
The one ritual is the cosmic
mix of motions,
wheel or thrust,
wave or darting particle,
pulsar's rhythm,
season, tide and breath,
brainwave, beat and metre.
The one sacrilege is
frozen purity.

        v
For no charming metaphor
of godhead would I exact
after drenched centuries
one drop of blood.
Yet those maddening
silly tales and pictures
have to all intents
expressed the argument
of the perceived design.

        vi
...27...69....46....
53....97....14 years...
wobbles of the globe in orbit...
season-throbs that beat out
folding skin to  photo'd faces...
time-tallies analysed to tiny
pulses' million-fold
drum-drumming of our
half-breathed legendry
of recollected names.....
Mortality's injury is healed
by just that brokenness.
Complete and permanent
each history would fill
its own eternity,
enclosed, sealed, separate.
The snapped permitted piece
participates in the
continuum, the self
unended in the whole of
numberless otherness.

        vii
The blind burst of origin
multiplying chaos
black and flash
pre-thundering lifeless force
helal stillness all annulled
spells:
Let There Be:
the sweet-pinched pot
the song that wrings
the ear with pleasuring
the tale the teller
writes to the machine
shivering with
the Shaper's joy.