Three Poems

It hangs like a calligraphic hinge
within the recesses. Dark and astigmatic,
the act of naming shivers a release. In
with the pin-prick of a chance; informal
splicing of regality, contextualising knowledge.

It is the fuming of a censor swung through
the plunge of agnosticism. Counting the slow
beats of a carpet song. Clinging, my difference
to the black jacket of singular stance, against
all laws of residual shlock (and the hourly glance).

He knows the counterblast of appetite.
Slops on the directory causing stuck words,
lost chronicles dashed with young blood,
lung flood, and a small white scroll issued
with aplomb. Script-lash is more than enough.

 

It was the habit of her small, gnarled hands
to say the beads, to tell them daily
how through the freeze frame of a child’s fingers,
a plethora of mothers found their forms. That woman
was as real as the dirt that bit their feet,
Lucia and the ragged siblings with her,
dirt they had no word for. Then that light:
a gold-edged spectrum in a dirt-poor night
and a voice that couldn’t be heard. Only
her rose-lipped smile, her open palms,
snow white, vulnerable. In her face
such sorrow for the mud-stained human race.
The rest was fragile, intricate, like lace
for priests to press and sisters to unravel.

To see these things and live: that was her sentence.
The fragile wish of her bones for severance
tapped at whispers threaded together;
rumours of war. Fear. Rough cloth at the wrist.
A vision of the ministry of silence, bright
and overexposed. And finished. And much missed.

 

1. If a bird wishes to join the sisters for meditation, but can’t follow the office hymns, what is one to do?

2. If there are twelve sisters presently resident, why do there sometimes seem twice this many at 5pm meditation?

3. If a sister should suddenly seem drunk and eager to sit only in sunshine, should this be permitted?

4. If one suspects a sister has red wine in her cell, should one visit her in the hope of being offered a glass?

5. If the slim tabby cat wishes to join the sisters and the bird for meditation, where should she sit?

6. If the mother superior offers each of the sisters a small wildflower from the grounds, is it customary to offer one back?

7. Should the statue of Our Lady cry, which sister should offer an apology?

8. If a sister should levitate, is it prudent to take photographs?

9. Should a priest vanish at the altar, must cleaning be postponed?

10. How many sisters does it take to change an altar cloth?

11. How many suppers does it take to fill a sister’s bones with health?

12. How many palm crosses does it take to build a workable two-sister raft?

 

 

Copyright © Sarah Law, 2005.

Sarah Law studied literature at Cambridge and London universities. She currently teaches literature and creative writing at UEA, Norwich. She has two poetry collections published by Stride (Bliss Tangle, 1999, The Lady Chapel, 2003). She lives in Norwich and is interested in the links between spirituality, art and writing. The poems here are drawn from a new collection called Perihelion, which Shearsman Books will publish in 2006.