A mystery of bells and the incense of Easter
bring us back from the vagaries of weather
while in my spent country indifference floats
like the breath of foul gas from a marsh.
The isolated beacons flicker like lights
on a runway’s approach, the city laid out
as something that might come close to hope.
I wasn’t thinking back then of much at all,
only around the edges of the familiar circuit,
the sky opened out and each brick, each joint
sat there in the sunlight as sharp and clear
as a recently discovered archaeological find.
In a museum of promises, mermaids busk
and frolick among annotated exhibits.
Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips
