The Earth Answered

who would have thought
that out of all
the unlikely places abroad
the ground under one of my feet
would start talking... as a Lover...
about Love... to me... in Switzerland...
and the ground
under my next step
follows in converse...
and Lago di Lugano...
and the dazzling white peaks of the Alps
crowning my head...
my Beloved is smiling...
nodding the head of a total stranger
greeting me ‘bon journo’ in passing

surely, Switzerland
you will forgive the folly amazement
of a heart exhausted with pleading?
but it was the Earth who answered:
if I were to draw upon my face
a random circle around your standpoint
and place your heart on its circumference
let’s say
in Firenze
or Cannes
or Dijon
or Stuttgart
or Dachau
or Venezia...
should it make the slightest difference
where Love might speak?

delighted
I seized the moment of intimacy with Earth:
please tell my forefather,
the Babylonian Psalmist, tell Ibn Gabirol,
your right hand has not been forgotten.
ask them
is it because you did not forget Jerusalem?
ask them
if it was Love you remembered even more
would not Love
be remembered in your hand?

Narda Azaria Dalgleish - 8 January 2005