Sanctuary
i.m. Meher Baba 1894-1969
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve knelt at your feet,
wanting to be delivered of myself.
This is what I’m coming for – my head on that slab of surrender,
the same thick Carrera marble Michelangelo used for his Pietà.
There’s no dusk, there, no planning where to hide.
The sun rises and falls with different speed and purpose.
Yesterday, I spoke with someone who had never heard of you.
He taught me the meaning of a qualisign: something that embodies
the qualities it stands for. Christ, he said, is a qualisign:
he is what he represents. I no longer try to convince anyone
you are the silence you kept. I have too much to learn:
how to press my skull against the side of your tomb
without asking you for things, without beseeching
that this separation end.
Rosie Jackson, from Devon, England, is widely published and has won many poetry awards, including 1st prizes Indigo Dreams 2026, Watchet 2026, Red Shed 2025, Teignmouth 2021, Hedgehog 2020, Poetry Space 2019, Wells 2018, Stanley Spencer Competition 2017, short-listed in Mslexia 2025. She has taught at universities, including East Anglia, her spiritual life has taken her to India and the United States. Collections include Love Leans over the Table (Two Rivers Press, 2023), Light Makes it Easy (2022), Two Girls and a Beehive: Poems about Stanley Spencer (2020). ‘a rare poet of transcendence’ Bel Mooney. ‘gorgeously original’ Jane Hirshfield. www.rosiejackson.org.uk
Amethyst Review 