Have you not heard of that ancient custom?
Have you not heard of that ancient custom? Two people breaking a piece of potteryAs though breaking breadEach keeping one fragmentBecause 'each one of us is a fragment of a man' (Plato, Symposium)And when they met again years laterBarely recognisable to each otherThey put the pieces back together— a symbol of their enduring friendship:Have you not heard of that ancient customReenacted tonightIn the KissTaking us beyond subject and object('When it comes to the kiss, philosophy has very little to say,'you once protested, adding soon after:'It would seem that the lovers of wisdom don't know how to kiss!')How things have changed!Always longing for unionWith my other (and better) halfThe two pieces, long astrayFinally fitted togetherMouth-to-mouthIn a union of knower and known'For knowledge becomes love' (Gregory of Nyssa, De Anima et resurrectione)As though it was 1975 again.
N. N. Trakakis
Love Psalm
Afterwards, in the indigo eveningWe lie in crushed grassSoaking up its sweet scent and stain.Our fingers loosely entwine.Suspended in calmOur single mind listensTo the nightingale of our tenderness.
Vivien Arnold
N. N. Trakakis is a Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University. He works mainly in the philosophy of religion, and has also published four volumes of poetry, the most recent being From Dusk to Dawn (2012). He edited Southern Sun, Aegean Light: Poetry of Second-Generation Greek-Australians (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2011).
Vivien Arnold has had careers in teaching, the public service and as director of a small HR company. She conducted St Christoper's Cathedral choir for eight years, has been active for over 40 years as a director in amateur theatre, and composes music for theatre and sacred choral works. Her dramatised oratorio The Naming of the Women was staged last year. She is working on another based on the story of Job.