Edwin Best: lyrics | fictions | episodes
you gave me the gift of solitude
I called it loneliness
but it was solitude
and you gave me the gift of constant longing
I called it brokenness
disrepair
but only the gift of constant longing
could keep me searching endlessly
for what is always here
everywhere
the library corner in the new house
is a good spot for meditation
from my chair I can see
a spire rising up between trees
assuming it to be a place of worship
I wondered what denomination it might be
then I was told it was the spire
of the local shopping centre
but it makes little difference to me
it’s still a good spot for meditation
still a spire rising up between trees
We walk the field
forever turning back
to pick up all the broken
bits and pieces
from this
the only ground we’ve ever known.
Fragments poking out
through churned-up clay
will fade away.
Knowing this I hear
the birds sing truly
in one great voice
they lift their throats and sing.
Leave your nets
your boats upon the shoreline
leave everything behind you
follow him.
come home
to where you are needed
we have left your old chair
at the water’s edge
still waiting
remember again the place of your making
long since forgotten
your father’s face
remember your home
your mother’s terrace
where you sat alone
watching for tears on a weeping fig
that she left in a pot by the door
a place at the table
kept down the years
unbroken
all has been left
wide open
I went hunting the hart
but the hart I did not see
except for one sweet moment
then only fleetingly
this lonely life is brief
and then to be at peace
I went hunting the hart
a hart too quick for me
they are giving me something now to help me sleep
sink deeper in this avenue of angels
in the heart of the terrible absence
we are done
we are unbegun
and our lives do not belong to us at all
saints and angels come
and there were many buildings and temples
and who is to say which is false and which true
so I kept going along the old coast road
in the hope that I may find a way through
for once more would I visit my father’s garden
and stand among the olives and the vines
even though I am old and weary
what is his is surely mine
so I keep going
where there are many paths down to the sea
for along this old coast road
there is one
that may be recognised by me
when the day comes
it comes from nowhere
even to those who wait
yes she said
a thousand times yes
but once would have been enough
to last for ever
and when the women came
they found the door open
and the room filled with light
for she had risen
and gone to the market
where they sell fresh pomegranate
gentian
gorse
parakeets in wire cages
softly
softly the waves lap
you were waiting
on the library steps
when least expected
but not forgot
for whom I threw away the trinket
of great price
you hold it at your breast
forever
soft as water
hold the light
as I search the whole world over
for comfort
to comfort you have come
love quickening out of silence
to split wide open
and recover all that I am
tell me about the sea
and what it means
and what the weather’s like in Brindisi
where my people come from
who I never met
I know more about the sea
and what it means
than I do of those who made me
and summoned me from sleep
tell me about the sky
and what that means
and what it means
to live without regret
I spend my days collecting meanings
and haven’t found one yet
Another Way of Saying 