Beyond Einstein

 

They talk, panoplies of perception;

Picasso-like profusions.

Tourbillions, the stones’ eyes

as would reflect in Van Gogh’s skies

and mouths: plastic, scream-shaped

as Munch would devise.

Their thoughts run together;

disparate landscapes; maps;

fusions of time and space and dreams; 

beyond Einstein.

Solar Festival of Newgrange

At the Festival of the Golden Light of Síd in Broga*

I sucked pale sunlight

and exhaled it golden.

You drank it at the eyes

and exalted me, Síd in Broga.

Drank yourselves drunk,

pissed in the river beneath you.

The Boyne stole my silver

and merrily, merrily carried it off to sea.

* In his book, Newgrange: the mystery of the chequered lights,  Hugh Kearns offers his theory that Newgrange (Síd in Broga) housed a gold mirror.

Hallucinatory

“Hallucinatory”, you say! Sky, earth,animal concentricly ringed.

Lives: stone, stone and river, river, human.

Hallucinatory: spirals, zigzags, chevrons, sunbursts!

Yes, I see the vortex you travelled through,

I see the serpentine trace of the Boyne,

Knowth, Dowth, Newgrange along its path;

the lozenged pattern of fields through which it flows;

the arced hills, chevron forests of trees.

Earlier, I saw the angular graph of human worries

side by side with the eternal turning of Gods’ backs;

the cardiograph pattern that reads mortality

next to the celestial manifestations that measure out lives.

I have seen the sundial that marshals the symbols into their system,

an assignation with mathematical precision;

I have seen them liquefied to become art,

much as Van Gogh painted the night sky.

(The Sundial Kerbstone at Knowth is a remarkable piece of work.  Is it the earth's oldest sundial? One way or the other, it puts many of the motifs in celtic art into a scientific framework. Google an image, if you're not familiar with it.)

Spirals, Turnings at Newgrange

The sun enters the passage;

I meet him on my way;

he touches my head

like water.

I emerge into day;

in the chamber

the sun dwells a moment

on my earlier impressions.

I return after the day

to elaborate my carving,

my spirals,

my perpetual turning.

Stone Art

 

 

 

 

                            Stone at Newgrange photo by Johnbod. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnbod.

 

 

A man is carving shapes:

spirals, lozenges, chevrons;

the sun is looking over his shoulder.

Below, in the valley, the Boyne passes

 with a glint from its teeth,

the whitethorn is in full bloom,

the daylight hours are long. 

 

His hands are leather from handling flint;

a wave traverses the stone,

arcs toss on the crests,

they tip left then right;

tonight the moon is tipping left;

in three weeks daytime will be at its longest.