The Angel Coast or Unexpected Gold

Bright heaven has let down her guard

And falls be-dazzled on the winter sea

The torrent breakers grey and wild

Erupt in scintillating cries of light

Bright platinum flashing white and

flecked with unexpected gold.

How came this glorious gift

To such a cold stone shore?

The whitening chalk cliffs, tender

Honoured yet, breathe phantom like

and mute

Beside excoriating power volcanic

Bursting from the home of light

In unrelenting bliss.

Kiss now our homely earth

And fling your star falls in the lucid air

As throngs of birds in undulating joy

Pitch up

and fall and

Rise again

Against the anguish of the blistering gales

Leaving with the myriad plays of light.

Lightless birds, heightening the air with cries

Fine soundings of an infinite wealth of time and turning space

frothed and breakered

in the drenching roar of sound

out, far beyond the realm of all our pinpoint shore-bound

possibility

this too much turmoil of unmeasurable beauty

pierces forth in

unreciprocal power.

Unending and unbearable glory

tears and sweeps away

the last of all my heart’s defences

And all this so

unmeasured glory

enters in.

Sarah de Nordwall October 27^th 2002

Swimming in the Falling Star Cave

You can only reach the cave by boat.

I was excited by that.

And once you enter in
You leave the brilliant sun outside
And so, the water although crystal pure
Is dark,
But all the same, I longed to dive right in.

Just then, I looked up
To a tiny opening in the roof of the cave
Where a ray of light pierced through
And shot like a heavenly visitor
Into the water,
with miraculous effect.

The light fell like a falling star
And for some reason no one could explain
Deep in the water, formed a bright green star
That sparkled 15 feet beneath the waves.

I dived into the sea
And swam through cool dark water till I saw the green star
With her luminous blue tail
And suddenly brilliant light was on my hands.

I, moving through my darkened underwater cosmos
Struck upon this vein of brilliance.

Utterly transfigured, all my being flowed with light.
I, joyous, rose up through the water in the star's bright tail
Till bursting through the surface into air
I felt the light fall radiant on my laughing face.

And treading water in this unexpected glory
Laughed again and reached up into light transfiguring
And cried out to the captain of the boat
"Is this how we arrive in heaven,
Emerging from the watery dark whilst following the star
Unique to us?"

The surface of the water, crossed by light,
Refracted on the cave's roof,
Danced with accompanying delight

And I, returning to my boat once more
Moved off into the dark baptismal water of the cave

and from the benediction of the falling star
Found all the sparkling sea, cold on my flesh,
Preparing me for resurrected life
And tingling with the brightening salt of grace.






Sarah de Nordwall July 2006