A Sacred Space-Clifton

They cried, Antonius
They mourn…
The walk in this space disturbs me,
And like a present voice,
In the angle of their heads
I feel their utterances
Calling, singing
Waiting in honesty, in reverence.
And they write... not me
Their hope distilled
In this one child
Beside whom I stood:
This monument of peace.

And Grandma looked at me.
The shortest, perched behind the stones,
She looked, in knowing
For this their hope
Though bent in anguish was she
Would climb the ladder.

Etched upon them are the marks of knowledge, smoothened
In the strength of acceptance, surpassing
Gnarled in the process of overcoming, their wavering
Bodies curve in the union of their struggle.
The space between them now carved and formed
Etched, lightened by the reverberating song of their presence and
Each time I come,
Their form,
Together, teaches me a new reality, of their existence of
How the space between them tells a story of
How their threesomes of symbolic energy and
Their stares of poised mystery
Call to the trees, the seas, the unseen.

And toward their calling, they
Raise their heads,
Finite beings, infinite in their roamings, carved
In space, in timelessness.
As old and new as the crests of those waves
That bore their story, that
Witnessed their calling.
They bend to embrace the motion of
Careless energy that promises,
Forever,
To release their weary spirits
And,
Bring on those white crests,
Their peace.

Marielle Barrow, completed March 29th 2005