low on the shore — crab cam
— rocks distinct in the early bright
a drape of sea lettuce — perfectly greened to please a child
and water gif-looped
like breathing // cold, clear and
flowing like our knowledge;
the sky and the land
some Edenic afterthought.
And for a bit of meditative drift (with a Modern Country twang) here’s American guitarist William Tyler with some Highway Anxiety (it’s a pretty fabbo film too).
not your touch but your absence
not your kiss but after
my cheek cooling
like the sun eclipsed re-emerging
the land gradually dawning
birds waking again.
not your breath but your perfume
just a trace — familiar, austere —
declines in the room
like a cloud moving away
the glare returning
colours bleached and bare.
not your words but the place
on the page erased
where a shadow remains
like a building emptied
or a statue burning
a space yet to be filled.
shirts, the torment of our sheets
your keys from the bowl
all these things, these you-things
like a door closing or a film
framed by a door of an empty house
the sound running down as we pull away.
the likenesses pile up
times when I mistake one thing for another
shadows for anime, windswept for blown back
the press of the tide for knowledge (of some sort)
hands waving hello for hands waving goodbye
— not your touch but your absence.
And for your listening pleasure here’s Thomas Tallis’ (from mid to late 1500s) Mass for Four Voices – sung by Chapelle du Roi – as one youtuber put it “Sublime magnifique merci.”
As you get closer the trail declines from wheel ruts to track, path to pad paced between grasses, an alignment of sticks, leaves, animal ways then ends — you can’t see it yet.
