The Red Cathedral of Bella Akhmadulina

I love Swallows for their grace and delightful flights of resilience and strife for improving lives.

I was too young and ignorant to ever try digest Philip's poem but I know there is a triangular spiritual connection between my godfather, the swallows and I. They inspire me, they inspired him and it is fitting they were at my christening. As absurd and egotistical as it sounds, I feel like they are going to play a bigger part in my life somehow, or hopefully maybe I might play a part in one of theirs.

Philip will always inspire me, he was the warmest and most loved human I know. Maybe losing a limb allowed him to fly more elegantly through the waves and pressures of life.

I think Philip being alive allowed me to pursue the arts, and thus saved my soul. He was my real career guidance counsellor merely by existing, by making expression and perception his purpose.

Photo in Cork 12.08.2020 - the swallows at home are playfully preparing for their big trip down south, from wire to wire as if lines of longitude