_ Where beckons the quiver…?
Are there no spirits moving in the air
_ ruling the region between earth and sky ?
And do you shine from the sky
_ goddess in decay,
_ as respite from the spit of day ?
For this world could not hold you ?
Whose arm twitches with your pulse,
_ as your ghost drifts through the lining
_ of the throat ?
Whose voice crackles as it shouts,
_ Whose chest wheezes like a blade of grass,
_ split for air to move through ?
Were they torn by tongues of anguish,
_ the remnants of your melody,
_ stretching a voice into a cry
_ thwarting the borders of a heart ?
You leave behind that crumpled piece of paper,
_ Not the wrinkles of your face.
If language should leave you,
_ alone to the touch,
where beckons the quiver of
_ ageless almighty ?
Each one of us a teardrop,
_ enters the world’s heart chamber
_ and congeals before your eyes?
Do you kiss the half-flown ivory tongues
_ that swipe across the many lips ?
And do the stars cluster,
_ as though gulls in search of comfort,
_ their screams of spirals broken,
_ their feathers like stilled flames ?
And were eternal chasms or a breath
_ to fill the shells
_ of their lost melodies ?
Paul Downes’ latest work Towards a Concentric Spatial Psychology for Social and Emotional Education Beyond the Interlocking Spatial Pillars of Modernism (2024) is an open access book.
Feature Image: The Flammarion engraving, c.1888.