Sarina was not her name; she used it when she was in a trance or "channelling".


Past Portrait

The portrait she planned was the face of a queen;

the painting emerged as a bearded young man,

someone imagined, whom she’d never seen,            

a face from the past, from a far foreign land.     

Painted in earth colours, russet and gold,

the most striking feature the mound of dark hair,

bushy and full with a queue as of old,

it looked like a head-dress, exotic and rare.

Sarina once told me she painted this picture

almost in trance, as if being led.

Hardly aware of the brush in her hand,

she brought to existence a being long dead.

She called it “Bartholomew”, felt that the name

was right for the man who appeared on the page. 

Never knew an apostle was called by the same.

Was this a link with that Biblical age?