She came at my request, at last. And in reply to my, "What can it be?"
said sagely, taking a close look around—
"Look, it's as if someone's stippled a sunset here, & mixed in ravens;
stars don't shine but snarl and snake
The bass that bite lie dead with their pink gills open, washed ashore,
and say, 'Take the spinners from my heart'
Jays crowd round the jagged moon, or else go careering off by themselves:
I see their crests through slate-grey clouds
And in the tree's gnarly sac the heartless soulless eyes of a crab appear,
or heartless lily bees
The sun that tenderly and shyly eggs on shoots, somewhere somehow
leaves a pale blackberry soil
And where there used to be the ash-tree's calm is the fir’s languorous look,
spongy & scaly, not a drop of resin left"
Sweeping her hand over the meadows, a final time, the muse of Kilally said,
in reply to my "What can it be?"
"The soulless crab that moves low in the night, over gravel roads, stiff-legged
will burrow soon & lie with the heart”
(2010)
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