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| Cuameenoole, County Kerry, Ireland (Susan King) |
Facing the wind,
the direction you left,
the routes you took,
my emigrants,
my dead, my disillusioned —
molten sea, dirt road, the very air,
forever watching you go,
the seen, the imagined,
coffin ship, town car,
barefoot and rising
through the magnolias
outside Roosevelt Hospital.
I am still here,
a life filled with leaving,
trying and failing
to translate the wind.
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Self-Portrait Asleep in the Tomb of Mererula at Sakkaara (Duane Michals) |
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Still enough in thrift shop wool
to feel the cold's long fingers
in a landscape unbroken
by the structures and the sounds of men,
still enough in fluid time to sense
a stirring from the other side of when.
—Title from Yeats.
Leaning out an upstairs window
the house empty in my wake
Pale blue islands of snow
on dark fields
in weak moonlight
The call of an owl
hollows the world
great-horned by its five
Wilding the slopes as they drop
into the deep night
where the creek rushes with thaw
black gleaming and muscular
So like a dream
I am unsure
then again
with a chill
Where has everyone gone?
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| Sugar camp |
Raised and writing in the country
He came to understand
Neighbors were poems,
Pastorals composing themselves
On the turning earth,
As are we all,
Some more difficult
Than others to translate,
Including himself,
So many chances for error,
Yet when you allow mistakes
The writing is usually stronger.
