Pearl Diving
The woman is sleeping now, as a girl could,
Curled like a leaf in the autumnal wood
Her breathing as deep as the rhythms that sweep
And gently beat on the stones-throw beach
The sea, in its slumber, within easy dream’s reach
Smiling, sated, with a fulfilled sigh
She settles position in our love-strewn bed
My lamp-light shadows the delicate threads
In the skein of her weaving of the seen and the said
Off Japan the ama are diving for pearls
Lung bursting plunges to grace the neck of this girl
In the rubble of Side where fishers once filed
We brush Roman dust from dolphin tiles
As a Little Owl haunts Side’s marble piles
There is snow on The Atlas, the passes are closed
Our
Past head high drifts and wind whipped ridges
Gem sellers in djellebas at the red melt’s edges
Ice blue barkhans sculpt the parapets of bridges
She stands on a rock in the spume heaving bay
Up to her thighs in the surf’s pounding play
She phones on her mobile so I can hear
Her pleasure and shock, sensations as clear
As the pearl gleam in our bed, the turn of the year.
© John Mackie,Banff, September 2008
