Illustration © Helen Nicholson
I stub a toe on something out of sight,
dig out a gloved tunnel sealed in sand:
an exoskeleton of light
fragile as a desert rose in my hand.
Veins of silica fork the beach we walked
to fossick for these art works cast
by showers of lightning bolts
from some primeval holocaust.
I hold the hollow tube to my eye –
a spyglass – and am thrown by the flare
of kaleidoscopic spectral fire
and cry out for a god to split the air
skewer the earth and unreel time’s race
so I can once more touch your face.
Greta Ross
Born in Sydney, Australia, Greta Ross graduated in Medicine, and then worked in health projects in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. She now lives in Canterbury, England, where she is an active member of SaveAs Writers. Her poetry collection, ‘Facts of Life’, was published in 2008, and her poems have appeared in poetry magazines and anthologies. Greta enjoys exploring different poetic forms and has won first prize in several international competitions and been commended in others. Many of her poems are a response to the natural world, and the effect of social problems and world events on people’s lives.
This is a response to Serendipity & Synchronicity, our first Spiritus Mundi theme.