(based on material from John Burnside's "Gift Songs")
a wavelength of owls, where everything is static
taken for a song
to continue alone
by something we ought to remember
and the grace notes of terror
and waking through clinker and ash, to recover a heartbeat
the part-song of cicadas
in our picturesque yard
of heroin and myrrh
before sinking again
loyal to his burden
while it was passing
bright in the here and now, unencumbered
that something might
between the river and a sky of bone
with a love beyond measure
and unable to run -
the here and now
that reaches from the light, to close, or open
first light and damson blue ad infinitum
and the night light, burning
turned to a farmer's sky
to the ocean
as nothing is, dug in and everlasting
endlessness
the branches of yarrow, preserved in the leaves of a bible
footfall, leaf-fall, silence
stitching the grass with desire
to sound me out, to comfort me with nothing
to isolate this waking form the dark
the hum of an idling machine
emerging from the cold
learning to live as a guest in the house he inherits
the laughter of women; the music of midsummer's eve
a guttering flame, that nothing will ever extinguish
in lines of salt that might be infinite
the laughter of women; the music of midsummer mornings
a fire burning out on the rocks, that blind continuum
to the currents beyond
unbinding his logic, proposing some ancient joy
better than all he has lost, and beyond his keeping:
and dusted with nothing
becoming fingers, eyelids, shoulders, hair.
