Meayll Circle
Time dances in a circle
at Meayll – your abstract
expressionism, an extension
of sea, sky, stone
and the bones of time
in analogous colours.
My discerning eye scans
your plein air for some
dissembling melancholy
or mirth. But all I find
is the stillness of air, like
the smile on the face of God.
The languor of the sea,
frozen in imprimatura blue,
a crosshatching into the sky.
An infinite meld; there is
no vanishing point, just
a harmony of hues. I try
to piece together, the abstruse
rock sketched eons ago
by the sky in shadows
of flickering light, that you
carefully recreate on your
dream canvas – a palimpsest
of time and tide. Water flows
towards imagined spaces –
all gathered into a single
moment of inspiration.
Is this so abstract and unreal
that I cannot really decipher?
Your brushwork is not made
of strokes but magical moments –
border crossings into an ancient,
shaman time. Now, I see this
ford, which ferries souls across,
at twilight time. The giant
sleeping rock, a silent witness.
Now, I see their fires, paying
homage to the sea and the sky –
torch-lit funerals on the hill
of the rising day, where
the souls stayed for the night
and left at the break of dawn.
The circle, chambered cairns,
in a ring of twelve, secreting
ashes offered to the elements
in ornate pottery, accessorised
by flint tools and white quartz pebbles.
You paint by day, their fired
funerals by moonlit nights.
Only time remains to tell the tale,
dancing in circles at Meayll.
Poetry © Usha Kishore
Meayll Circle is an archaeological monument on the southern end of the Isle of Man, consisting of a megalithic chambered tomb, believed to be from the Late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. The Meayll circle consists of 12 burial chambers placed in a ring.
Meayll – translated as “bare headland” from Manx Gaelic
Poems from On Manannan’s Isle – © Usha Kishore
Painting – © Carola Colley