|
I Am Twenty People!: A Third Anthology from the Poetry School, 2007
(ed:
Mimi Khalvati and Stephen Knight), Enitharmon, ISBN 978190463436
The Mosaics at Monreale
A euro in the slot illuminates
the Testaments. We know the stories, mostly.
See there’s Noah, reaching out of his ark
to guide the lion in. His wife and sons
and their wives crowd the windows, faces doubtful.
Above them God sits on his globe and lets
the waters separate revealing sky
and earth. He makes it look easy, creation
a gesture of the hand towards the thing
it loves. Another gesture and the land is filled
with birds, the sea with fish. We are astonished
by the detail, the peacock’s long tail feathers,
the stork on tottering legs, the dove, the fish,
I love the fish, heads stretching for the shore,
where their creator sits. Above the door
Eve steps away from a sleeping Adam.
Louisa Hooper
|
