I feel at home
in these Celtic hills,
with broken icons
of heather
hovering over
every crag, every valley,
the spirit looking back
upon the body.
The magnetic pole
pulls my blood,
the thumbprint of night sky
in my inner eye.
When you are lost
to ones you love,
you will face south-southwest
like a migrating bird
and at certain hours
your body will be flooded
with instinct,
so much of you
having been entered,
so much of you
having entered them.
Their limbs
will follow
when you lie down,
a shadow against your own,
curving to every curve
like Hebrew alphabet
crossing the page of your soul,
bent with carrying absence,
cargoes from distant ports,
the power of stones,
the sorrow of those
whose messiahs have made them
leave so much behind...
In the early winter darkness
of these Celtic hills,
I raise my hands
to my face and smell heather
in my palms.
I long for memory
to be spirit,
but fear it is only skin.
I fear that
knowledge becomes instinct
only to disappear
with the body.
For it is my body
that remembers them,
and though I try to erase
my dead
from my senses,
try to will
my dead
from my listless sleep,
this will
amounts to nothing.