Mirror

“Life/Soul is like a clear mirror; the body is dust on it.

Beauty in us is not perceived, for we are under the dust.”

                                                                Jalaludin Rumi

Pretty pictures cycle past me,

me, here, in this café.

I feel the picture in my fingertips –

the smell of linseed and the smoothness,

the low lying land and the railway banks

moving against my brown skin.

My six and twenty score of crisscrossed lines,

the lucky star you said would always be there

always to protect, always to guide.

I am that amulet!

Shield me from the small pieces of grit

which only draw tears

and blood. It is dust, only dust

I am covered in it.

There is only the blue of your eyes

bathed in sea-spray and forget-me-nots,

the blue uncovers me.

I am the battered rockface

threshing you against me, you against me.

Shiny sky pieces are in my hair and the dewdrops

on my fingertips feel the pulse of the oceanbed.

Waiting for you to find me, life tremors.

I am here, in this café.