PERSPECTIVE FROM TWO POINTS Have crossed as strangers, without a word or a gesture, she directed to the store, he to his car. Perhaps you lost, or distracted, or forgetful that he had, for a brief moment, cherished forever. Besides, no guarantee that they would. Yes, perhaps, from a distance, but up close anything at all. I saw them from …

BACK OFTEN AND TAKE ME     Return often and take me. Back and get me, or feel loved, if the memory of the body awakens, and the old pang passes into the blood, then the lips and skin from rising, and yet it seems that the hands touch. Return often and take me at night, then the lips and …

WHEN YOU SET OUT FOR ITHACA When you set out for Ithaka, you hope your road is long, full of adventure, full of discovery. The Lestrigoni or Cyclops, the angry Neptune do not worry: it will not be this kind of meetings if your thoughts remain lofty, and a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Cyclops or Lestrigoni …

In Tuscany, a region of central Italy, the Florentine art school starts – from 1300 to 1500 – new aesthetic, who gradually extend throughout the Italian peninsula. No more images hieratic and fixed, but the living reality, that of men and the countryside, becomes the new frame of expression for architects, painters and sculptors. Initially they dominated by religious themes, …

PRAYER Our baby’s heart, on the sixteen-week scan, was a fluttering bird, held in cupped hands. I thought of St Kevin, hands opened in prayer, and a bird of the hedgerow nesting there, and how he’d borne it, until the young had flown, and I prayed: this new heart must outlive my own. (Kathleen Jamie) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Findings-Kathleen-Jamie/dp/0954221745/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

AS THE MIST LEAVES NO SCAR On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor ever will. When wind and hawk encounter, What remains to keep? So you and I encounter, Then turn, then fall to sleep. As many nights endure, without a moon or star. So will we endure, when one is gone and …