Pie Pellicane
for VM
Then shall the fall further the flight in me. -Herbert
i.
Light with extended wings
unhinged from sluggish dawn
came veering on
feathering waves,
sheering the way a seabird shaves
the wind,
dipping in obverse gleams.
Of each long crumbling dark
the hurtling arc
is like a pelican
skating its own unfazed
reflection,
grazing its mirrored
turns.
Water and light and seabirds
do with ease
what soul learns
hard.
ii.
The ocean baffles thirst
while lines the waves rehearse
stymie my ear
with more than I know how to hear:
light footsteps on the waves,
“It is I” in their octaves.
And how can mortal eyes take in
Christ passing in the pelican?
Watch how reflections totter
where Logos walks on water.
More than I can read’s twice written –
pelican on pelican.
iii.
On my incohesion,
on my toss,
on my submergence,
walk across.
I am the image faltering.
Draw me so I'm drawn
while I erase.
So that my altering
poises
in convergence,
pace
to pace.
Isabel Chenot has loved, memorised, and practised poetry all her remembered life. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood Books.
Amethyst Review 