Did you ever Cicero hear talk of love?
In her flat, in the latest hours of all. As dawn broke over the Tyne. Over the mouth of the Tyne. Over the North Sea. Over the north and south piers. That was when Cicero would talk of love.
The messianic hour, that’s what she called it. As the sun started to rise. Following the hours of the dog and wolf. That’s when she’d speak of love.
Love … love … the most unexpected word from Cicero lips. When she spoke of the love that goes from one to the other. The love that passes from neighbour to neighbour. She talked about the tree of life. About escaping the Egypt of nature. About loosening the nomos of the earth. Of leaving the house of fucking bondage. Through love!
She spoke about the sparks of Shechinah. About the scattered light of the original Creation. About epiphanic moments – images – in their powerless beauty.
She spoke about the Umkehr, the turn, the conversion, the revelation. She spoke about the palace of blessed life. She spoke of the remnant of singularities. She spoke about all things receiving their proper names.
Radiating centres of life – that’s what we’ll be, those of us who survive, she said.
Survive what? we asked. But she’d just smile.
Work in Progress 