The Cypriot Imbroglio (For Suzannah

Poetry Dr. Rodney Sharkey

I

It is warm Burnt. You are welcome We are wounded Warm, burnt, welcome, wounded – words.

You found yourself on a desert island Incinerated and wounded But, yes, warm and welcoming. As so often before In no time at all You grow cold Like the furthest flickering star A brightness, frozen out, from afar.

Yes. You found yourself on a desert island, Momentarily, Then lost yourself in no time at all As so often before Making it up again In no time at all Making it up again As so often before With your pen in no time making it all up again With warm welcoming wounded words.

II

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then you realise that you are not loved, enough and love is past. And whole days are lost and among them the grass turns grey and dry.

And sometimes you want to speak and then you do not want to speak, then the opportunity has passed. Pain flares up and you watch the grass turn to rust.

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then you are not friends, and friendship has passed. And whole days are lost and among them balding earth, dead loss.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then there is somewhere to go, then you have bypassed. And wonder should you? Again? You wonder if these things always end in pain yet as soon as you begin to wonder if these things matter they cease to matter, you are content and pain is past. You spy a fountain shoot fresh water into the air and you are staying there.

III

I am in the ocean You are on the beach Although we too are blue As sea and sky Wouldn’t it be grand to dance into this yellow sun.

I can stand on the ocean bed So no question of drowning, literally. But I am, in this moment, a migrant. I’ve come from no place called home and have no place to call my own. Like Stevie Smith I’m not waving nor am I drowning, but I’m tired of treading water and would dance both of us out from beneath above.

I see you in my mind’s eye Still In your blue swim suit In the warm summer sun You kneel and open the book I have wrapped and left as a gift on the sea shore. I hear a distant violin And we are gathered safely in Hand in hand we enter the Dance Our life begins.