MAGATAMA RETURNS
Tight arc
Hard as stone
Open eye.
Rigid curl
Weighed tight
Pulsing.
Foetal curl
Settled
Pulsing.
What is it?
What is it not?
Magatama.
Worn smooth
Rubbed
Inward.
Container
Contained
Key.
One skin
Rubbed smooth
Inner, outer.
Stretching
Taking form
Throbbing.
Rising head
Looking
Seeing.
Eagle beak
Bear claw
Worn smooth.
Incontrovertible proof
A previous universe
Magatama.
Worn away
All that remains:
First universe.
Hooked,
Held,
Harvested.
Hollow seed
Throwing curved edges,
Expansion.
Hollow centre
Regarding flow
Back to nothing.
Becoming precious
Passed down:
What remains.
Accumulating
One surface:
Time-space.
Oldest unknown
First limit
Convolution.
—-
Every now and then, the magatama awakes, whispers into half-sleep. It is a strange being, a shape so simple, so involuted. A seed, a genetic meme. Casting around, I wondered if there were other antediluvian icons that would stir that ancestral well so surely. So far, the closest approach is by the Celtic torc. Like the magatama to the first Japanese peoples, the torc epitomised what to be a Celt meant. A real, tangible object, an object of trade, of status, of power. I shall have to listen to their whispers also……
