I have a photograph
of the canal in Bath
by the door leading out
of my living room,
taken the day after my husband died.
A house reflected in the canal.
The real house windows are dark…
no lights on…
but the reflection
has windows blazing with light
from the setting sun.
It reminds me
My husband’s earthly life
Was ended, and dark,
But he still lives
in the light of the mansion
in the Otherworld.

I went often to the canal after that.
I did not see the sign again –
the combination of a dark house
and blazing windows in the reflection.
It was a “one-off” symbol
given to me
to teach me
and to comfort me.

I love my friend Anthea’s paintings.
Three pictures,
illustrations of my two books
Myths of the Sacred Tree
and Crystal Legends.
I went to Santorini
with her in 1990.
I climbed a volcano with her,
and watched the sunset
over the Aegean Sea ,
and walked through
an ancient Minoan town,
and brooded on whether
Thera’s volcano erupting
made an end of the Minoan culture
in Crete .

This week the Icelandic volcano
erupting
has disrupted air travel in Europe .
Both my sons,
Julian in Indonesia ,
Strat in America ,
can’t get back to their homes
in England .

Not since Icarus fell from the sky
has man been in so much trouble
flying.
Was it the volcanic ash cloud from Santorini
made Icarus fall,
or coming too near the Sun
in pride?
And would the Icelandic volcano
make an end of our civilisation,
based on flying
and money,
as the Santorini volcano did the Minoans
in Crete?

Mary’s son
holds
a golden sphere –
the world
in pure light.
Past, present and future –
poised
in the palm of his hand.

Mary’s son
holds
the Light
that was before
the light –
the Light
that was before
Mary –
but not before
her son.

Mary’s son
lifts the golden sphere
and throws it at the dark.
‘Look,’ he cries.
‘Now
All is Light.’

Contained in flesh
are we?
No. No!
Contained in the unimaginable
sphere of God’s love.
No small thing
our cares, our fears
until touched
by this touch.
This key
turns us from our fears
and turning
frees us.
Now we know
that we are known…
and cared for.

Small are we?
No. No!
Each fills the universe,
for each the universe
is there.
Now we feel it.
Now we abandon
doubt
and jettison
despair.

Touching this icon
flesh dissolves
and our true containment
contains us.
What was great to us before
now shrinks
and the small and disregarded seed,
the secret and abiding
meaning of our lives,
expands.
With God’s all-seeing eye
we see
and seeing
know.
In His hands
we rest
and in His heart
are blessed.

The dangerous seeing eye
is poised to strike at darkness.
No mild recognition,
but terror,
as meaning leaps to meaning
like lightning on iron mountains.
   Words slit
   in revelation.
The crust of long-accustomed thought
   shatters
and an unfamiliar landscape
   is revealed.

Published in The William Blake Birthday Book (ISBN 9780956199904)

LIFE STORY

Life is woven out of stories…
warp and weft
the threads interplay
and interact.

Mind stories
lying in bed at night
reshaping the day’s events…
reading…
listening…
watching…

Stories shape and colour
the fabric of our dreams and memories.
Words and images
flux and flow…
change… reform…
and give illusion of reality.

Who can unpick the threads
and know
where we begin
or end?

(a poem Moyra wrote in 1946)

The bank has gone insolvent
and is closing now.
The heavy brass doors shut.
The people shout in vain
against the pillrs of the vestibule.
The gods are sending out the bills and we can’t pay.
Too late we see
it was a false invenstment.
We stand
and stare at the bills
and the shut doors
of the bank.

A poem from The Breathless Pause by Moyra Caldecott

The anniversary of a death

Trying to reconstruct a person
on the anniversary of his death
you must enter
the labyrinth of memory
with its twisting
and its turning,
its sudden shocks,
its false starts
and its blind alleys,
and its sudden revelations
of what you did not know you knew.

Someone emerges
from the shadows,
familiar,
yet unfamiliar…
substantial
yet unsubstantial.
Fading fast
leaving an ache behind…
and a question:
Did you ever really know him?

Moyra at St James Wine Vaults, Bath

A poem by Moyra Caldecott, from The Breathless Pause:

While I was wasting the day

While I was wasting the day
the grass was growing,
daisies opening,
sunflowers
pushing up tall stems.

While I was wasting the day
the bee pushed its way
into a hundred foxgloves
and went home tired.

Now the light fades.
The rain wets my hair.
I smell honey suckle and musk rose
and take a deep breath
for tomorrow.