Tony Jolley - Gentle Gravity

Silent at first;
A duet danced and sung by eager eyes
Across a distance ineffectually imposed
By dining-table dimensions,
The conversation continues.

The merest movement of the least lash or lid
Received and read at the Speed of Sight,
Yet Einstein’s Constant seems somehow estranged,
As if the gentle gravity of our love and longing
Pulls, bends and slows every photon almost to a standstill.

The image of my face plunges, headlong
Through your beautiful pupil portals,
Those dark, dilated isles
Set in their emerald oceans,
Diving deep to register upon your retina
An upside-down reproduction of reality
Ready to be righted unconsciously.

Thereby miraculously inverted, translated
Am I to multiple memories of me related:
All I am, have been and ever shall be
Gathering about this new comrade captive –
An orderly crowd of possibilities
Vying for the opportunity to be selected and connected.

You orchestrate your instruments of mind and matter.
You choose and your chosen memory
Is matched and married to the moment.
You find yourself a well-wisher
Watching her newly-weds
Run gaily giggling
Under the blade-sharp incisors of a pearly-white guard of honour,
Through the Kissing Gates
And on into revelation:
Conversation.


Yet before they set sail in their romantic carriage
Bound for sound:
Exotic lands of hearing, listening, thinking and responding,
Know, My Love, that I see your Spirit,
I know your Soul,
That an ‘Iowan Conversation’
Though silent’s still whole.

Tony Jolley

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/gentle-gravity/