Stars like knots

(To Jorge, in loving memory)

They were gigantic waves

and when they broke

against the virgin sand

white, fine and gleaming

there arose a cloud

of minute stars.

Stars like knots

linking water with earth

earth with light

the silence of your lost voice

with the music that lives in the memory.

Enormous stars like huge knots

like the waves

like the force of the explosion

in outer-space.

Minute stars

like small and well-tied knots

miniscule like grains of ash

that travel in the air

bringing their message

of love and of desire.

The potency of a sentiment

that does not know how to surrender

and forever and ever defies

the incomprehensible and stubborn

threat of death

                 Martha Canfield

(translated by Ashlee Redfern)