The Hours of the Night

Vespers

You can’t plunge into black forests
like that. Well, you can but don’t whine
when the path mires and you smash
your lantern whirling
at twig snaps.
(Not now, George!)
And don’t set off flares –
you shouldn’t even have flares.
Remember,
we’re not coming to get you.

Compline

Down, damnation, down!
George, if you can’t control
that slavering beast
neither you nor it are coming.
Christ, more snow, more dark.
Yes, I have the brandy –
let’s go!

Matins

What boot tracks
near the holly bush?
There’s nowhere to go
but over that precipice, you fool.
I am not cold!
Where is that dog?

Lauds

Here, boy.

Smashed lantern glass
on the snow; new red
flares at the hawthorn foot.

Why didn’t she set off a flare,
why didn’t she,
George.

**

progression

you who knew me a glorious
knowing kissed me
a whole heaven
of kissing

whose love to me was the mullioned
window in a stone cottage that looks
a round gold looking
over the moor in bright
summer

you know why I repudiate you
a woman’s repudiation
and hate you
a gnarled dark hating
of stink
and seething blowflies

**

The Rector on Good Friday

the sky is not pluming charcoal
the air does not quiver
with hot yellow grief

it is April centuries later yet
bending dark occupies
his soul, his eyes
are empty brown rooms

he lives the day tuned
to an old oboe
follows it winding
down hours of ancient pain

in younger days I pulled
on him: Grandfather
remember I am flying
this kite and you
are helping me

now I only sit with him
or touch his cheek and bring him
something to drink

**

why we are still together

you said it was our last chance we went
to Ruwenzori which are the mountains
of the moon

the trees wore moss held soft
conversations with the mist
as it trailed thickly
as it clung

we climbed a group of us climbed
you were always ahead somewhere
behind somewhere dissolving
in the mist

on the high moorland
giant lobelia silence steeped
in ancient prickliness
our breathing became visible you walked
closer

we worked the steep pass to the glacier
Elena
on the vast creep of her immobility her blinding
whiteness you stood
yet closer

then in descent in the full in-your-face snapping
thick green of living bamboo forest we fell among
gorilla

a shocking a beautiful family
all pearl black eyes swinging muscled casual taking
great crunching bites out of
the emerald forest

our guides pushed us down
onto underfoot branches hissed
at us but the monstrous silverback charged at us
he charged
like armageddon

we froze melted together
on that breathing mattress
of vegetation but only you
cried out

**

homesteader

I step into the heat as into a dress
the sun fits me it is
my size

and the heat is face-shaped

I move through it
tightly in state in
slow motion sailing
reef-eyed hearing breath
the color of amber

how silent is the heat how long
the voyage

I will anchor here
in all the yellow grass of the plains here
in the thick mutter
of brown soil