Зимородок - стр. 6
Anastasya Shepherd
The distant clatter
Of the predawn train
Quilts the quiet air,
Pulls the thread of the whistle
Long, long, l-o-ong
Through the mist.
Between sleeping and waking
I dream.
I piece together
Stations, timetables, tickets
To choose my own destination,
To fashion a different self.
7. Synaesthesia
There are times in life when synaesthesia becomes inescapable,
when water smells like lead and feels blue…
Anastasya Shepherd
Escape is possible.
Search the floor of your perception,
Feel for the hidden trapdoor,
The moment of synaesthesia.
Pry it open,
Heave it up on its rusty hinges.
Plunge into the blue.
Roll up, solid, dull,
Like a ball of lead.
Sink through the water,
Pass through the gradations
Of the shimmering light
Deepening into darkness,
As the shadows thicken.
Let go of all
That has been visible.
Feel the weight of the ocean
Press you to the bottom.
Smell your own fear.
Taste the bile of loss.
Rise, rise like an air bubble.
Push through the cool resistance
Until you are released,
Until you burst into nothingness.
Let the freedom of empty space
Flood your senses with joy.
8. The Age of Discovery
You make choices.
Those choices make you.
Then you make choices.
Always a spiral – upwards or downwards – it's your choice.
Anastasya Shepherd
Having circumnavigated our world,
I realize that it is not a sphere,
But a spiral.
I am back where I started from.
The path ahead is as unknown
As it was before the journey.
But you, my friend,
Who steadfastly stayed here
At the origin,
How did you find out?
Or was it clear?
Was it clear all along?
Theological Questions
Circling the pulsing center of their universe
The fish are passing through sunlight and shadow.
Their existence is framed, circumscribed, and protected
By the carved marble rim of the fountain’s basin.
Do they fear or worship the hand that feeds them,
Removes their dead, repairs the stonework;
The hand that brought their ancestors here
From another world in a wooden bucket?
Can they see that the hand moves more slowly now,
That the bony fingers have grown stiff with age?
Portrait of a room
Now, as a human life in this room
Is ebbing,
The attitudes of the objects
Become apparent.
The rocking chair
Stretches forth its arm-rests,
Ready to embrace, to lull,
To enthrall with the stories
Of a long life-time.
The mirror turns a blind eye
To all that is happening here,
Gazing intently
Into its own distant dreams.
The hospital bed knows
That it is seen as ugly,
Unwanted in every room that it enters.
Yet it goes about its work
Reliably and with care,
Keeping the patient
As comfortable as it is able.