by Gail Tyson
Illuminatus
Welsh meadows glow like icons
written in green-gold. This one
tilts an upland table
where angels toss back
clover, chicory, wild mint. Grave,
expectant in white wool, they turn
to a woman downhill
drenched in the same light,
turning as if to call her home,
The feast has just begun.
Come closer.
Galway Cathedral
An acrid-sweet
scent like burning peat,
the prisoners’ last
thoughts drift around me
as I walk up
the nave, back through time
pacing paupers’
quarters, turnkeys’ rooms.
Where lime dissolved
bones, rise limestone walls,
mosaic saints,
three rose windows and
above, the dome:
a perpetual
blue hour where time
dissolves every cell
and souls, skinned like grapes,
take on the shape
of freedom.
GAIL TYSON’S poetry and prose appears in such journals as The Antigonish Review, Appalachian Heritage, The Other Journal, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and Press 53’s Everywhere Stories, Vol. III. An alumna of Stanford’s Creative Writing Program, she has attended juried workshops at Collegeville Institute, Looking Glass Rock Writers Conference, and Rivendell Writers Colony.
Photo: “Chicory” by Robb North
Psaltery & Lyre 