Reading Czeslaw Milosz at Mullion Island

Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé

 

Think however you like about this island, its ocean whiteness,

grottoes overgrown with vines, under violets, springs.

                 ~ Czeslaw Milosz

 

The small boat barely took the four of us.

Its oddly matching loom oar and sculling oar

looking like bony arms reaching in, to sit in John’s hands.

It was a driftboat, had a glass bottom, framed like a window.

Clear cerulean outside, as bitter cold too. One long fish brushed

the length of its side against the glass. Another swam close to it,

hesitated, then placed its lips to the surface, as if it were a mirror.

It was a long, travelling kiss, eyes open until it let go.

 

There were no Symbolists or Surrealists for miles,

the way Milosz liked it, only the sound of Shane reading a poem.

 

On the island lived the same poem, with skin like a mermaid’s,

iridescent with blue veins showing, a liquid cyan glistening.

In the light, a slow blinking like lightning bugs in the winter.

The mermaid didn’t have a name, beached herself

until she grew legs, and walked up the hill to make a home.

 

Her lodge was built within a deep cave. Its roof angular,

following the curves of the low dome, yurt-like. A cliff dwelling

in the back became a balcony, palm stairway rising to meet it.

Vines grew a few yards into the cave before the light went out.

Before the shadows greyed the walls until the inner lychgate,

where three bulbs, hung from rafters, fully lit the room.

 

The walls were a beautiful greenstone,

kept the air inside cool and dry. Ambient, inviting.

For John, Mersea Island was the taller dream, its ready farms

already tilled into their cycles. In them, pumpkins.

Raised beds of lettuce and cauliflower, peas and cucumber.

One artist had a name for every fish he painted, their scales

shedding into colour trails like drip paintings.

One curator called him an Abstract Expressionist, his index finger

joining the constellatory dots to trace Volans, then Auriga.

 

The island in the poem was just as imaginary, yet lucid.

These islands seemed to magnify themselves into strangeness,

Ciaran’s housed in its own fortress, made of Caen stone. 

 

It was a churchyard, no pews as if the terrazzo floor was enough.

In the north corner, so it avoided sundown, its dimming horizon.

There were four chairs in the chancel, rusted into black,

the others equally sombre, an antique cherry

with leatherette seat cushions for a long wait, and longer silence.

 

The lectern was simple, not shaped like an eagle

or the white pelican, but a small gull. Unadorned, half-mast eyes.

Standing on its perch, a mound of sand. Wings clipped.

No words on the hymn board, as if the thurifer had swiped the letters.

The dividers made of limed oak, over the redder sienna.

 

This time, Shane took the oars, and with a sigh, headed farther.

The Milosz poem wet with seawater, the mermaid under glass.

  

* This poem was written on 30 June 2011, to mark the birth centennial of Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz. The epigraph is an excerpt from his poem “Island”.

 

---

Reading Czeslaw Milosz at Mullion Island won second prize in the Lupus UK Poetry Competition 2012.

 

Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé has edited more than 10 books and co-produced 3 audio books, several pro bono for non-profit organisations including Sok Sabay Cambodia, Riding for the Disabled Association, and the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre. His work in entertainment and lifestyle journalism at 8 Days magazine took him to Australia, France, Hong Kong and Spain, and saw him writing numerous stories, including features on Madonna, Björk and Morgan Freeman, culminating in the authorship of the limited edition Top Ten TCS Stars for Caldecott Publishing.

Trained in Professional Publishing (Books) at Stanford University, Desmond studied Sociology and Mass Communication at the National University of Singapore, and later received his Master of Theological Studies (World Religions) from Harvard University and Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing) from the University of Notre Dame. Desmond is the recipient of the Singapore Internationale Grant, awarded to launch at the First Prague International Poetry Festival the anthology For the Love of God, which brought together 35 award-winning religious and literary contributors from across the world. His poetry and prose have appeared in more than 40 literary journals, including AGNI, Confrontation, DIAGRAM, Faultline, Gulf Coast, Harpur Palate, Harvard Review, New Orleans Review, Seneca Review, Sonora Review, and Versal, with work forthcoming in Blackbird, Cerise Press, Copper Nickel, ditch, Ganymede, and PANK.