Sara Basrai

Near the holiday cottage, over which wild
geese flew, stood a stone building
-- an aging mosaic within a circle,
a Miró-like design,
on one of its mossy walls.

There was no reason for the building
and no memory of the artist.

Bullying winds sometimes raged
through the long grasses nearby
warning me to go home.
But stirred leaves dripping
in magenta berries
only made the fractured circle
more inviting.

Barraging rain swept off the ocean
over ancient forests.
Grassy smells rose and with them
radiant moods. Tiles won a sheen.

As a child I danced.
Once I swore I heard a harp.
The sun´s potent rays scattered clouds
then everything green turned golden
and new, shadowed, just spun.
I longed to stay within the moment.
The mosaic appeared whole,
somehow revolving.

But a truck on the way to town sped by.
In my distraction, I swore I heard
the circle on the mossy wall whisper to me,
"Turn, quietly."

I turned away.
Yet believing the circle was a mirage
and the progress of the wind, sun, rain and lorry
my reflection.

That´s a whisper I carry with me now
in a jaundiced city, my life relentless, alone:
and fields far away.

Often I think on the circle´s call
for quiet revolution.