to SUZANNE MY ENGLISH ROSE

 69 PEARSON PARK THAT NIGHT IN HULL

That Christmas Eve of '66 I met love at the midnight mass Abyss of the ineffable When the curtains were drawn Of the arcane secret What happens in the life of man Just one time It was an epiphany I have not returned to Hull that northern city The walls of Endsleigh College I didn't skip them I knew happiness and exile Since then I am A wandering jew The days the months and the years turn Turn the Ferris Wheel of Events The buckets squeak And without realizing Here I am a poor old man Faced teeth And February snowflakes Caressing the fur of my hat And my coat I will take that love to the grave And write your name Over my grave A name on my lips Suzanne, my English Rose Name that sounds like a kiss Russian c h e l o v a t b tebiá Troparies, kiries and songs The fimbriae of the stole Of the deacon You were so pure all gold Like the chasuble of the pope Inside the iconostasis Coral fulgias and smiles Now Mussorsky music is playing Listen beloved to the choirs That follow the monotone hymnody After fifty five years The door of gifts opens A holy anchorite extended blessings to us open the tabernacle of the Tabernacle symbol of our pain Santiguadas tracers of innocence step by step towards Golgotha Towards the triumphal crucifixion I found you And looking at you I went up to heaven Rung to rung By Jacob's scale An unusual event Like Petrarch when he saw Laura He also knew the sacrament In a church in Avignon And Shakespeare saw the Swan of Avon Like me in Hull Yorkshire capital Inhabited by tough and compassionate people outspoken Whipped by the wind And the gales of the North Sea That instant That mass Is the secret of my life Who will accompany me to the grave Divine love beyond death That turns us into gods