Remedy and Other Poems
by Ion Corcos
REMEDY
I open the wooden door at the front of the monastery,
crouch through the low entrance. We had walked up
a rutted road, rivulets crossing along the way,
in late morning sun. I did not know what to expect.
Inside, a two-storey building, rough stairs under walnut
and horse chestnut trees; at the top, a church
within a pine forest. Green woodpeckers, tree sparrows,
a raven cawing, grey squirrels hurrying. A dry leaf
cracks off a branch, falls onto earth. No one else.
No monks, the house doors padlocked, the church bolted.
No mystery. No candle, a flame gently moving
in the stillness, a reminder of the quarry of years left,
the past immutable, torn. I abandoned everything.
My gaze caught, I put my pen down on a bench, follow
a serene robin. Not for the first time, I am inside nature.
Unseparated. I do not have any thoughts. All that, elsewhere –
suffocating, prodding, the herding of beasts into a corral,
the antipodal seasons, ties – disappears. Yet, all that,
paint brushes left in a jar, upside down, oil-hardened,
the sorrow of no goodbyes, the moon in deep lakes,
carrying remedies in worn suitcases – brought us here.
The irreconcilable. It is not quiet in this autumn forest,
only that the tweets and cricks are unseen. Ghosts.
I have thought of the life of a monk, the polished rote,
the attachment to seeking divinity, but I have not considered it
for myself. Only seeing. Knowingness; unknowingness.
In this retreat – I did not think there would be no one here,
no monks at all – the unknown draws me in.
ON A WOODEN BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER
I stop on the wooden bridge over the Glazne River, the snowmelt
a rush of water submerging white stones and moss, an unshackling
of layers of sedentary drifts. A confession. Memory: brittle leaves,
pine needles, feathers. The outpouring, a cacophony, as if I am
on a shore, the crush and thrust of a stormy sea on broken shells.
It was not long ago the owner of the apartment we are staying in
drove us to the end-of-season mountain slope: no thorns,
or men in tanned skins, tin bells clanging, carrying flaming torches
to drive evil spirits away. Instead, cold, we drove down to a cave,
past cypress trees, a solitary squirrel scurrying onto the dissipating ice.
We walked over grey rocks, lichen-shaded, taking off gloves
as the sun warmed the air in the grove, the chatter of finches
and sparrows. On an unleafed tree, supple buds about to unfurl,
a Martenitsa, a woven bracelet of white and red yarn in the form
of two dolls, worn on the wrist from the start of March
till the first sighting of a stork, when the adornment is knotted
onto a branch for luck or protection. In these mountains, not far off,
brown bears roam. Quietly. Not endlessly. The abundant water
of the Glazne will not last more than a few more days;
too turbid for swallows, unreminiscent. No fossils, and no promise.
As dandelions bloom on grass, unhoard their renegade splendour,
despite mowers, bees inhabit flowers, wild hair thins to fall silver.
RAIN CLOAKED IN PINE NEEDLES
In a narrow lane, as if I have unlocked years,
plates broken, useless, the disassembling of posture.
A wretched field: strewn potatoes, rusting hoe, bent shovel,
a woman on her knees, digging, a man in a corner.
Stacks of wood against a roiled shed.
An autumn chill turns the air maddeningly wild,
churning dry reeds into creaking paper feathers, pigeons thrust
till the flock restores, settles on a power line.
The bells of a monastery unclasp and fall like rain
cloaked in pine needles, acorn shells on a tin roof.
As the afternoon darkens, a girl leans her bicycle upon a gate,
wraps her purple headscarf, then walks up three short steps
to the obscured doorway of the Mother of God church;
on the wind, the choir: hallelujah, hallelujah,
a golden dome glistening. There is nothing alone here.
On the road home, throngs of striped Colorado potato beetles,
and at the side, crab apple trees, alpine elders, blue plums;
wilted corn stalks, wooden fence, a raven.
A thousand sparrows lift from a hedge onto an anarchic bramble;
hop vines dangle over unruly gardens.
The unfolding of sanctuary: the not barren, a worn handle,
an iron gate rotting, the violable, and a walnut tree, extended.
Ion Corcos
Ion Corcos was born in Sydney, Australia in 1969. He has been published in Cordite, Meanjin, Wild Court, riddlebird, The Sunlight Press, and other journals. Ion is a nature lover and a supporter of animal rights. He is the author of A Spoon of Honey (Flutter Press, 2018).