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Sport 23: Spring 1999
Dinah Hawken
Dinah Hawken
The Question of Gulls
Answers are everywhere. The question could be simple,
it could be lying like air in the wing of a gull.
It could be lying like air in the bone of the wing of a gull,
or like the air the wing is lifted and held by
while the gull is lifting and lowering and lifting
its wings. It could be a question of wonder, of taking off,
a question of desire, a venture—it might not be
the gull, or wing, or even the air, not even a feather, it might
be the winging and the sheer momentum of
winging open eyed in open air over an ocean
A Matter of Stones
Touching is believing. Faith could be simple,
it could be lying like a stone in the heart of your palm.
It could be as firm as a stone in the heart of your palm,
and as fitting in the place that your hand provides for it
as a seed belongs in the hollow of a pod. It is a matter
of density. And of destiny. It is a small, hard world.
It is a monument, in the mind, to concreteness.
It is a stone. It sees like a blind eye, and is,
becoming warmer, a third eye. It is a loyalist to life
and to survival. Touch it. It knows exactly what to be.
The Issue of Water
A life could be simple, it could be gushing like a spring,
it could be surging and cascading, swirling and rippling
like a river sweeping down to the sea: it is an issue
of fluency, the mother-tongue, the first murmurings,
it is an issue of gentleness, giving, yet never giving
up the task of smoothing hardness, it is an issue
of purity, and of reflection, it is the issue of pure silver
coming as a colour into a dark world and moving
with such force and such beauty that we, standing beside it,
love what is coming and go willingly where we're going.