Andorra, gateway to hidden paths, Antonia Zenkevitch 2008

The Book of Living

Inky shadows painted on light so we can see,

From close to opening, a world as we perceive –

Become ourselves for the Becoming to be,

Core reacquainted on the rock to which we cleave

Returning to renew; to be at-one and still be free,

From the bustling calm within the rousing meadow,

To climbers’ ways, distant paths whited at the peaks,

Heart-stretched, eyes bathed within dawn ablaze on snow

Past paths in white-washed squall, a wanderer still seeks

To feel vital, meaningful; to be inscribed into a life of awe,

Balance of care and risk, no more the nurture of our fear,

The essence in me calls to lift up to where the eagles saw

I have felt paralysed, mortified, yet still I am lifted here,

No more unread, dusty shelves, write me in the book of living,

Smoke gusted, rinsed afresh for thirst- quenched, fruitful being

Made of dust and whispers, breath of receiving and of giving

Fare-well oblivion, enlivened, my soul’s eye is once more seeing,

Allotropic, shimmering, diamonds once written in graphite,

Written like the ice and fire, written like water and the wind,

After heat and pressure, collected prisms of sound and light,

Life the prayer made into being; the incantation given wings.

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch 2012

The Path, Cornwall meets sea, 2008, Antonia Zenkevitch