Faith
So there we were, tramping upcountry,nowhere near the end of the world,though maybe it felt like that,especially when, at sunset,the forest subsided into the eeriesthush, and we might thenhave glimpsed that point of infinite gracethey talk about in the old scriptures;but once omnipotent nightslid over the campsite to revealnothing beyond a black more dazzlingthan any darkness could contain,all we could do was inhalean immense presence touching everything,which we called faith.
Possible friends(after Adam Zagajewski)
Those who no longer existare the ones, bittersweet, we cling to.
Their keepsakes we embracetoo late: his capricious tartan scarf
you never wore, her bookletof psalms and proverbs — they sting us
from what might have been, brittlechannels in the brickwork
of lost choices. And thenthe universe of strangers, so-called:
that Heathrow cabbieyou converted to an ancient cousin
and then tipped profuselyas a kind of penance, the old Belgrade poet
who pocketed, for you,a two-millennium tile at Viminacium
(you tried so hard yet he couldn't graspyour refusal, your antique ethics)
or the aging waitress at LAXdiminished over a perfect spoilt romance,
her voice a far-off waltzyou almost recognized from — where?
How many faces in the pinball metropoliswith proud eyes flashing by
are faces we have once crossed already(and if not, in a previous life);
how many, in a parallel moment,if we should only stop each other to listen,
might grow into our lifelong familiars —to sit with us, debate Heraclitus,
elucidate the essence of the Preludes,or tell us just who we are?
De la nature
Our friendship was purely aristotelian,all ethics and poetics, but no lawto commandeer doubt or dialogue;
There was no sharp agony of alternatives,no sticky neo-nietzschean imperative,no will to profounder cleansing;
At the time (of course) one felt quite thirty,executor of a divine estateamid all those tabloid rumours of demise;
We trudged colosseums of becoming,our connectedness, more euclidean now,still kindled a stern metaphysic;
Though at last (the universe cooling)one noticed the global glowthat wriggled from the tar-line up ahead;
And made haste placidly — was it notjust around the corner of a page,nearly there, we were treading time;
Our friendship grew quaintly cartesian,all seven-way mirrors and equations,and we flirted with dialogue and doubt;
Little knowing what awaited here,we exulted in the chorus and the comedy,wading forward, still quite thirty.
Alex Skovron is the author of five collections of poetry and a prose novella. He lives in Melbourne.