Sunlight in pin pricks needled through in lines
That dried my clothes and set in song the birds,
Whose mournful warble stirred, as if with words,
Electric blue to flicker in the grey
And in the darkness recreate the day
Complete with transposed forms from nerve to tree,
The short quick jumps of birds made too by me,
Though I'm a glacier heading out to sea.
My brother found me by the river's mouth
I'd been spat out on crossing from the South
He said in knowing words as birds alit
'Each compass point detests its opposite,
If we seem out of place and find no rest
Our hearts are pining for the North and West,
To great forests where wolf and wolf's bane bear
Impenetrable crystal winter's air,
Like Canada or Finland or somewhere.
To places where the osprey dips its toes
And casts its silver catch to mountain snows.'
I have my pack, my knife, my pots and pans
I'm sure there's a log cabin in these hands
With arms that long to swing a sharpened axe
And be in love with each of the impacts
The ring a minor or a major key
It doesn't make a difference to me
For I'm a glacier heading out to sea.
I'll build my homestead by a frozen lake
And softly in the frosted night awake
To pick the detail from the gathered stars,
That guide the roll of Jupiter and Mars,
Those hollow glows, those sublime subtle lights,
That spread great bears and heroes o'er the night,
My eyes are open now, this wintered sphere,
The drifted scent from me to distant deer,
The moth pine beauty Panolis flammea.
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