CAAKE Winter Residency – December reflections PART 3 KERRI NÍ DOCHARTAIGH

The Turning of the Circle; The Lore of the Line.

 

There is a line

 

that knows

 

neither ending

 

nor beginning.

 

 

I will take ye there, in the still, soft turning.

I will take you there as the circle turns,

as the winter makes ready;

as the moment for deep change

lands on grey concrete;

 

feather-trace.

 

 

(what trace may we leave here in this place? what bring we here, what bring we here; WHAT BRING WE HERE?)

 

 

white for all that we know and do

not do/for all that we have lost/

for all of the LOSS LOSS LOSS

 

white for the birds and all that

they have taught us/for all that

we have given/for all of the GIFTS

GIFTS GIFTS

 

white for the past and the place

that we have left behind; for all

that we left behind us like a line

made of ghost tracks and still, soft

echoes.

 

G H O S T                       L I N E

 

lost bird

 

 

A line that halved and divided,

that ran alongside

the trauma and the ache

– deep inside the bones of us

– the bones of the place;

what to do with all the bones,

as white as old man’s beard

– on the circle of this darkling winter?

 

 

(make a moon of them, make a moon of them)

 

MAKE A MOON FROM THESE BROKEN, BRILLIANT BONES

 

 

reflections like thunder or like the wren, like the past and like all that we will never quite know; like the depths and like the place the birds come down from – full of healing light – peach and as changing as the wind.

 

 

WE ARE HERE, AND WE ARE MAKING A CIRCLE.

we are making a circle from a line

we are making a line from a circle

 

 

 

WE ARE LETTING THE LAND

HOLD US CLOSE;

where the circle and the line

meet themselves,

in a still, soft place.

 

 

Though it may be a line you see, it is a circle that holds you close, that brings your eyes

up from the darkness; into the gold – into the gold; into the bright gold light.

 

 

when was the last time you wept?

when was the last time you laughed?

 

 

you are safe here.

you are safe here.

YOU ARE SAFE.

 

 

you belong here.

you belong here.

YOU BELONG.

 

 

even in the depths of loss, a stillness will seek you out.

(it may come in the form of decay or of death – of plastic remnants of a life once lived –

of fragments and broken parts of a past that is only now making room for light)

MAKING ROOM FOR LIGHT AND FOR THE SILENCE THAT COMES WITH HEALING.

 

 

you will always know the way,

you will always know the way,

YOU WILL ALWAYS KNOW.

 

 

YOU ARE THE CIRCLE

YOU ARE THE LINE

 

You are the turning,

on the darkest night;

in the place that made you.