“He . . . lifted up his head, and cast up his eyes into the welkin and wept.” ~ Thomas More, from ”Dyalogue”

“When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from ”Sandalphon”

Southern Stars and Aurora Australis
Banks Peninsular, Canterbury, New Zealand
by ~Niv24 (creative commons license)

                   

                   

Harmonic Vases

In the choir of the Église St Martin,
just beneath the light-blasted gothic vaults –
are a number of small holes,
the openings of large ceramic pots
placed in the walls
to improve the acoustic.

Lucius Mummius, who destroyed
the theatre at Corinth,
transported its resonating bronze vessels to Rome
and dedicated them
at the temple of Luna.

In cottages in Co. Clare,
an iron pot or horse’s skull
was buried under the hearthstone
to give resonance to a dancer’s step,
to contain the necessary emptiness

for though we wish to live
utterly alive, within our skins,
there lives in us another yearning –
that whatever harmonic is awakened in us,
reverberate outwards,
through our voice, our step,
and outwards
and outwards.

~ Moya Cannon, from “Seven Poems”

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