Memory
At the sky above our house,
(under “the smallest mountain in the world”
Its sturdy shoulder leaning against north winds)
Barbed wire snags the lines along
Autumn`s cinnamon rusts of ferns
Grown by rocks below erupting conifers.
And a strike of it above again
On a path stepped out by files of sheep.
Takes me to the top, to stop
And light a match, to fire up smoke,
To shake loose the line
That linked your hand to mine,
To tie and cloud and wrap myself
Escaping to forget it rapt, to make it up
to you to me to find a truth
I don’t and couldn`t know,
where clear steel panes and planes
And lines of memory merge to points
And vision is division,
as uncertain as the paths
Of the swirls of swifts.
But the mercury globes of rain
On a rowan tree on a hill,
Run true still with gravity,
Downwards: one girl, one face, one place.