“Tomorrow they wake to the colors of absence”
Eric T. Gamalinda, “The Speed of Light”
When I am lost in things, you are not here;
nor are you there when I consider air,
but light’s speed brings a vision
then the distance is the view,
as if the image is of you in air
as tangible as these, the naked trees.
A far cry follows at the speed of sound;
says you are found, but wind takes it away.
You drew an absence here, like breath;
you painted vanishings.
So I can breathe another day, another year,
despite the fear I will be lost in things.
Do Not Go East
Do not go East: satori is at hand.
In shifting shells, in sea shelves seeing is
believing: more than all beliefs unshelved.
Do not go up: here heaven has a hold.
Air there is thin, too thin for breathing in,
and yet there is a rapture in the deep
beneath the light: green, dark and wonderful.
And dark is where the dreams are; past things, too:
the place we see ourselves unselved,
and find an ocean, opiate enough
to drown all doubt. Go down, then, if you will,
and sink into intoxicated sleep.
Shells shift and speak tomorrow and afar.
Tomorrow is the place where rumours are.
Philip Quinlan was born, and lives, in the London area but spent many years in the North of England. He has published two (so far narrowly circulated) slimmish volumes of poetry (illustrated by the artist Annie Ovenden): True North and Leaves and Limnings.
