LUCY TREVITT
Sophia's Song
Hers is the heart
hers is the pain
and hers is the eclipse
of the full moon,
the wisdom that rises
with the dew;
and all that remains of the night
is vanishing in her face
reflected into the pale sky -
She was the one
who first sang to me
the poetry of real life,
the light shining through the shadows,
and the tender conscience
that holds this sacred space
where the colours change.
Poem
A little child begins to talk to me
In my sleep
She has dark hollow eyes
And a pure smile
She is dressed in summer clothing
I am weary
As if I am treading
On cotton wool
And eggshells
And trying to touch her
Is like touching thin air
She is so quiet
And so full of pain
She stares deep into me
With eyes that hold the answer
To a secret I do not know
As if it all belonged
To someone else
And I want to cry
As if I suddenly know
What feeling is
I listen to the noiseless sounds
Of her leaving
And I remember I have lived
In the dread of it
I will not let her return
To this place
Without me
What is this
that passes through life?
What stirs in this moment
brought by the ruins of a tide
that stands forever?
It is not in the nature of stars
to leave monuments;
There are things unknown
and things unknown
and in between the sky and earth
are the whispers of wisdom
like the star in the stone
treading soft and holy,
still quiet in our unexamined truth
like an angel clothed in flesh
singing of moons and seas
and having the courage of compassion;
for how else would it share
in the responsibilities of rock
and the myth of knowing?
Her choice was
to die
or to come back deeply wounded—
What was, was
no time had passed
she did not exist
and she told no one;
numbed by the cold
alone in the dark
insubstantial as a dream,
the secret locked in her body
lost behind the fear in her eyes,
eyes like caves
opening to the light
blinking the intensity and disbelief
of a life unlived,
of long nights encountering the unfathomable
dreaming with eyes wide open behind the veil,
and the spaceless stillness of days
looking into the distorted silence of a secret story;
and there, where she could have died
a hundred times
there, in the depths of her despair
she survived
she survived because of what she saw
on the other side of reality
and she remembered
that she had died
for things that did not belong to her,
she remembered that she must reclaim her light
and emerge from the hidden places,
she remembered that she is me,
and through me
the silent one will have voice
and come to life
and, by living, dissolve the shadows
and break the dying lie.
© Lucy Trevitt 2007