Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage; a poet’s response

The poet places language beyond the reach of time: or, more accurately, the poet approaches language as if it were a place, an assembly point, where time has no finality, where time itself is encompassed and contained – John Berger, 1984.

Water-god, hand-embroidered tapestry, 2026

In the beginning, a movement underground.

A stirring

A coiling

Becoming unstuck.

Soft red visions slowly thickening and open.

Now, walking through Reykjavík, I remember.

A lupin flower, the edge of solidness, the bellowing walls.

My love from the mountain is close.

Soft red visions slowly thicken.

Part of Iceland now, I am coated in the world.

Steaming slowly in hot springs, 

I remembered the stars weep too, /And tears of space.

Unravelling form, physical movement, breathing it.

Snow fills the window,

Snow fills the black amnesias of me.

Volcanic ash smothering my feet,

To think of the edge of dust, the valley of the spiralling tear.

O unmarked parts of space!

My heart drenched water yet again. A glimpse then of the angel. She!

These reflections have formed the back-bone of my novel, The Museum of Prophecies.