[Dichtung]

Ciaran Carson
Eesti*
I wandered homesick-lonely through that Saturday of
silebt Tallinn
When a carillon impringed a thousand raining quavers
on my ear, tumbling

Dimly from immeasurable heights into imaginary
brazen gong-space, trembling
Dimpled in their puddled, rain-drop halo-pools,
concentrically assembling.

I glimpsed the far-off, weeping onion-domes. I was
inveigled towards the church
Through an aural labyrinth of streets until I sheltered
in its porch.

I thumbed the warm brass worn thumb-scoop of the
latch. Tock. I entered into bronze —
Dark, shrines and niches lit by beeswax tapers and
the sheen of ikons.

Their eyes and the holes in their hands were nailed
into my gaze, quod erat demonstrandum:
Digits poised and pointed towards their hearts. The
are beautiful Panjandrums

Invoked by murmuring and incense, hymns that
father passes on the father,
The patina of faces under painted faces. They evoke
another

Time, where I am going with you, fatherm to first
Mass. We walked
The starry frozen pavement, holding hands to stop
ourselves from falling. There was no talk,
Nor need for it. Our incense-breath was word
enough as we approached the Gothic,
Shivering in top-coats, on the verge of sliding off the
metronomic

Azure-gradual dawn as nave and transept summoned
us with beaded, thumbed
And fingered whispering, Silk-tasselled missals.
Rosaries, Statues stricken dumb

Beneath their rustling purple shrouds, as candles
wavered in the holy smoke.
The mosaic chapel echoed with a clinking, chinking
censer-music.

This red-letter day would not be writte, had I not
wandered through the land of Eesti.
I askede my father how he thought it went. He said to
me in Irish, listen. Èist.

(с)

* Eesti - Estonia in Estonian