This, like “Breath of the Soul”, was written for the live event surrounding the James Lee Byars exhibition (see that post for details).

Turning Point

And so the longest day of the year sped by
Lifted on the smiling backs of gulls
And tugged on by the breeze that graced us
There on our hill, watching the sky wheel overhead.

My flesh still warms to that sun’s caress
on your skin.
My smile still remembers your hand -
Heavy with the softness of you.

There was a kite
And the crash of surf below us.
There were distant shouts,
And the brief, wet nose of a questing dog.
There were the scents of crushed grass
And your hair - spun glass on the breeze
Reaching out.

I’ll swear we passed a lifetime there,
In that echoing day that rushed past us,
Taken on the tide of words spoken
And words silent.
And I’ll swear at the last your dandelion breath
Puffed the summer stars into the hushing sky.

The force that pricked them through it
Pushed me to my back
Where the earth gently gifted me the day’s heat
And I, awed, wept for it all
Two tiny tears I hid in hayfever.

We left before the night grew cold.
And you believed me.

The bedrock of my soul
Still gives back the heat of that day
I only have to close my eyes
And I’m half-blinded again by midsummer sunlight,
Lost in the place of the new colours
Seen obliquely by the sun through your eyes.

I cannot remember one word of that day.
Not even your name.
And so its treasure is secure.
High on its everlasting hillside.

This poem was one of a set commissioned for “Bardcore” to be written for the James Lee Byars exhibition in Milton Keynes Gallery as a result of being commissioned as part of Poetry Kapow to write and perform poetry for an open arts event at the Gallery run by Lost & Found. The piece that particularly caught me was “The Breath of the Soul” (a large, hand-carved sphere of white marble) and the direction of the piece developed, I’ve no doubt, as a result of a friend passing on.

The Breath of the Soul

The breath of the soul is flawed,
Scored with all the indentations that caressed,
That brought it here, that made it what it is.

The sigh that is stone rolls, as it must
Making tracks, as it goes, in the dust -
Black and white and, later, gold.

The essence of the stone is the groans heaved
In its weaving, the sweat poured,
The flesh and blood beaten against its surface,
The heart worn with each sharp stroke
Shaping the whole, bestowing grace,
Carving a face into this change of nature.

And when the last stroke is taken,
The stone rolls to the centre of the room
Where all turns on its axis for a while.
A sweet and bitter while.
Until time passes and dust falls,
Changing its shape again, softening its shadow.

For perfection is in the making
And when the breath stops...
The sigh is still.
And all that is left of the stone
Are the tracks that it made as it passed
through the dust of a world
Which keeps on turning.