(This poem is dedicated to the beautifully lyrical music of rapture and redemption which this young Californian, Judee Sill,  produced prior to her tragic death by heroin in 1979.)

 

She’s the shadow of a shadow,

She’s the smile upon a face,

She’s tantalising, like music,

Released from time and space.

 

Her image is a mirror,

Of glance and glimpse and gleam

On St Agnes Eve pursuing

The remnants of a dream.

 

We track her down the by-ways

Of yearning and despair

But at the sound of foot-fall

She’ll vanish in thin air.

 

But in the ways of poets

Such images of air

Take on a Mighty Working

Ethereal and Rare.