[ilds] very very sad news

[Charles Sligh]

So sad to read this news, Rony.

Niki Marangou graciously added her warmth and knowledge and friendship 
to our June 2012 gathering at Goodenough College in London.  I am 
certain that others on the list will share this same sense of loss.

Gratitude for her gifts; blessings upon her memory.

Charles

***
***

ON MIRRORS

You gone, the mirrors all reverted,
Lay banging in the empty house,
Redoubled their efforts to impede
Waterlogged images of faces pleading.

So Fortunatus had a mirror which
Imperilled his reason when it broke;
The sleepers in their dormitory of glass
Stirred once and sighed but never woke.

Time amputated so will bleed no more
But flow like refuse now in clocks
On clinic walls, in libraries and barracks,
Not made to spend but kill and nothing more.

Yet mirrors abandoned drink like ponds:
(Once they resumed the childhood of love)
And overflowing, spreading, swallowing
Like water light, show one averted face,

As in the capsule of the human eye
Seen at infinity, the outer end of time,
A man and woman lying sun-bemused
In a blue vineyard by the Latin sea,

Steeped in each other's minds and breathing there
Like wicks inhaling deep in golden oil.

-- 
********************************************
Charles L. Sligh
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
charles-sligh at utc.edu
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