Small Epiphanies

Nights by the bay are a symphony of wood

     and water; the distant slap of an oar

          on the skin of the inlet,

bowlines rasp against the bollard.

     A sloop mast groans

          as a swelling breeze gossips

with the canvas. The jetty

     is bleached with moonlight.

          Barnacled pilings silently sway,

sullen with their greening beards

     and weathered disposition.         

          The sand is cool and damp.

An incoming tide shackles my ankles

     with kelp, dusts my calves

          with salt. I breathe the brackish air

and wonder which whales exhaled

     the molecules I draw in.

          Each step brings offerings:

                        tormented driftwood

                        sand-polished sea-glass

                        shells from distant oceans.

I look up to see a field of stars

     campo de estrellas

          the Spaniards called it.

And suddenly I believe

     the Milky Way could be dust rising

          from the blistered feet

of countless pilgrims.

     And beyond Santiago de Compostela

          lies Finisterre

where the road-weary

     find the end of the world

           and are new baptised.

Another starfish froths up at my feet,

     luminescent jellyfish blob

          beyond the break,

and I’m no longer uncertain

     of my place in the world.

          This place

where small epiphanies are found

     in the creak of a midnight hawser,

a quicksilver moonbridge that links

     seawall to shore. And it’s enough

          to make you almost

                             (almost)

          believe a man

               could walk on water.

the Japanese have a hundred ways

to say snow and rain

yet I yearn for words to name

how a whiff of Old Spice

on a passing stranger

makes me tremble

what is the word for the balance point

between faith and fear

that moment winter sunlight

stutters through venetians

to pool in the hollow ache

of my need for you

we need a word to define

that shock beyond grief

at the coldness of your skin

as I retied the Windsor knot

just the way you liked it 

and what is the term for bearing

the unbearable

when I slip into the skin

that you once wore

zipping up your Burberry

plunging my hands into pockets

that once enveloped yours

my feet wallowing

in your gumboots

after The Milkmaid (1657-1658)

oil on canvas, 46cm x 41cm

— Johannes Vermeer

There is prayer in this woman.

Prayer that needs no utterance.

Up before Matins, whilst the house

still slumbers, she labours

away the shadowed hours

shoulder welded to the flank

of cow after cow.

Her thick sinewed arms

drive the heels of roughened hands

into the dough. Over and over.

These are not chores,

but benedictions to life.

And her kitchen now smells

of hay and heifer

             the innocence

             of daily bread.

This is no milkmaid.

No kitchen helper.

She is no less than a saint,

proclaimed in cobalt

                    & ochre,

centered in her own world.

A world where pouring milk

becomes devotion.

A world where holding

the belly of a jug

(ever so gently)

makes us quietly weep

for the faith we’ve lost.