I Wish I'd Written This

Carpe Diem ?

By Agnellius & Daniel Serebryany ??

The arch of heaven will beam pearl-light ?

opal will hide behind the ends of earth 

?the universe and God in friendly splendour 

?will dip into silver the shining of the mirrors... 

??...all will be brought together to a single source... 

?the last semidarkness... there are no fallen wings... 

?the lips will cling to bottomless Crystal � 

there is no reflection, only pure Light ... 

Translated from Russian by VD

It was on MySpace years ago that they first contacted me to ask advice about the English translations of their work, which I was happy to try and help with. Then we were on LiveJournal together for a while, and eventually facebook.

They were always reticent about themselves. They were a group of Russian poets and artists, they told me. 'VD' is presumably another of them. They politely and unequivocally declined to give me any personal details for this article.

I, as many of you will have gathered by now, am Pagan. These Russians are passionately Christian, in a mixture of fiercely apocalyptic and delicately mystical ways. We are well aware of our differences, though we have never discussed them. None of us is hiding anything in that aspect of our lives. In their case, their religion is the subject matter of their poetry and paintings. We simply never referred to it, but talked poetics, and there we were very aligned. 

Some of their work I would not have wished to have written because the content was too far from my own thinking. Others, though, were so beautiful that I'd love to have been capable of writing them � such as this one.  It seems to me very 'judgment day', yet to go beyond this specific theology as the ultimate expression of union with God. And the painting beautifully reflects it.

Poems and photos used in �I Wish I�d Written This� remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).