THE GLASS SPONGE Poem by Caitriona O'Reilly

The fine annealed glass of the Bishop's Eye,
under the pull of centuries, is said to flow downwards
like very slow tears, to pool at the base of panes


where its colours thicken: tincture of iron oxide, taint
of arsenic, the cursèd cobalt. Nor can dense incense,
nor can the sanctified waters of Jordan, asperged,


hope for long to rise. Words; accoutrements.
And these fine-fretted lacework tubes, on closer inspection,
come not from the grab-bag of Victoriana,


stitched by hand on three bone needles, but from the lung-
collapsing weight and depth of oceans, against which,
de profundis, their miracle skeletons arise.


Spicule after spicule, in the manner of spoked snowflakes
repeating, fashion a spun-glass high-rise, in which (marriage-
bed or mausoleum) a pair of symbiotic shrimp see out their lives.


So it will gather silica to build its body,
as its name - Euplectella Aspergillum - contains a vessel
for the holiest water, a spore unbreathable as ground glass;


as with such occult intimacy the light becomes the leaf,
and the silicate sand, struck by branched lightning, vitrifies
to coralline glass: an effulgence, a lamp lighting the deep.