Angel Fire

For P.H.

The fire of angels is my gift to you,
If you would wish the kisses of that flame,
The lightness of that incandescent tongue
That licks at thought, and burns all self away
In opening the flesh to its immortal life
And the remaking of the present time
In forms unheard-of and without compare ...

Copyright © Charlotte Appleton 2003

Goddess

For H. M.

Mine is a name
Written on water,
Mine is a face
Carved in sand.
I am the wind
And the waves' daughter,
I have no place,
I have no land;
Give me a boat
to sail forever
Back to the pools
Where I should be;
You are all fools
Who love my laughter,
I am the sea,
I am the sea.

Copyright © Charlotte Appleton 2003

Olive Tree, Fornalutx, Mallorca

The olive tree, its centuries of dance
In veils of silver leaves awaits the rain
All summer long upon this rocky ledge
Which generations' hands have terraced full
Of chalky soil and buttressed with huge stones.

The wealth of ages, oil for lamps and brows
Of priests and kings, and simple shepherds' fare,
The all-anointing, given without stint,
Comes from this arid spot, and brothers there
Who spin the slowest pirouettes, and store
Up wisdom from their grasp of the Earth's bones.

Five thousand years, a million lives have told
Their rosaries of seasons in these groves
Of ancient knotty dryads, silent prayers
For water. We are innocent and young
Forever here, where village elders tend
The hard boles smiling, bending as boughs bend,
All woody, stiff and wrinkled, but not old.

Copyright © Charlotte Appleton 2003

Homage to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Homage to the hero
of heroes,
he who has overcome.

Even the face of this earth shall pass away,
even Tibet
has her time and her season;
he has appealed for peace,
he has made cause for reason,
reason and requiem,
buddha, bodhisattva,
kyrie eleison, to swallow poison
and not complain, for we will return
as Socrates did, with a myriad faces,
tongues to speak, candles to burn,
books to teach, hands to reach
out.

Shout, shout for Tibet
and let the mountains echo your voices,
cry the far crags of memory,
weep for the hermitage lost.

You in your cities, you who run
from broken heart to coffee-break
remember the hero, the exiled priest-
king of the dispossessed.

For you are still seeking what he has found;
comfortable in unease
you do not tread the holy ground
beyond decease;

for he has died utterly to himself
and serves his people, and all people
lost in the category maze
of human selfishness;

There is no home for he who knows
where the light at day's end goes;
but those who meet with him in mind
will leave all sorrow far behind,
and those who follow in his wake
and live their lives for others' sake
stepping outside the bounds of fear
will pause and be reborn in clear
light.

Copyright © Charlotte Appleton 2003

Sleepless Night

I slept today like the dead,
Having bled like a saint
In order to live,

And lay awake this night
In a curled loop
With the moon filling my room
With memories of you,

Of what we snatched from the city
And the season,
Of the utmost penetration
Of touch and reason.

Copyright © Charlotte Appleton 2003