in stone

in stone
for Keikei

..that light should break time and tide…

Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.

from the stele of Seikilos to his wife
(dated 1st or the 2nd century AD)
Translation:
While you live, shine,
have no grief at all.
Life’s a while only,
the end as time requires

for you
no night
be wholly
dark
no sorrow
stay its
chain
about your
heart
however hard
the circumstance,
from that somewhere,
that inviolate warmth
within you,
may your smile
ever break
to shore
under the
clear weathers
of your eyes,
though time shall
have its end,
so too it
ends in
us.

22 January 2021
riverside

Copyright © 2021 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

The music is from the second movement ”Andante cantabile’ of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 performed here by the Drolc Quartet.

Ms. & match

Ms. & match

‘In a gull place at a stable time’ snapped in the Weathercats snap

I.

three orientals

three wise men
sat upon the park bench
that faced the estuary
unflinching, realised
it was a case of being
in a gull place
at a stable time,
gathered up their
fussy and fiddly
gifts and hems,
and moved
on.

II.

through the rye

‘Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro’ the rye,’
wee mousie sang as
she plied her
cricket drawn plough
across young Rabbie’s* farm,
and rested on a

clashing rocks

clashing rocks*

Capri, Italy, image by Pepi Morelli.

a boat smashed
in midstream
you wonder how.

the open sea
closing to a
dangerous run
the deep lull
of the balancing
tide the green
glistening along
the oar
has risen dark
you slip
over the surge
amongst rock
a sky caving in blue
off the edge