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This poem is taken from PN Review 169, Volume 32 Number 5, May - June 2006.

Four Terzanelles for an Alchemical Civil Partnership Christopher Nield
 

'And as all things were from One, by the meditation of One, so from this One Thing come all things by adaptation. Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, the wind carried it in its belly, the nurse thereof is the Earth.'
                                                      The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus

for Peter


0) To Apollo

My love is calm and stone is warm.
Each word is white as summer air.
The emptiness of touch is form.

No shadow moves our mindful stare.
The breath between us disappears.
Each word is white as summer air.

There is but having in these tears:
This knowing you. This knot of grace.
The breath between us disappears.

We meet in sun, where face to face
There is no more than tenderness:
This knowing you. This knot of grace.
...


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