MONK HILL

 

I’m out in the cold. My mapping pen scrapes

the torment immobile of black stark pines,

I peer again, again at the landscape:

the wild rain that makes the flint paths shine.

 

Forgotten pain. As good as dust. Alone.

On empty roads the dark is a thick coat

I wear and breathe. Life in a house of stone -

on a bare moor where none can hear my shout!

 

What peoples this vast solitude? What flame

lights the fell’s tales, the tangled play of trees

into faces present for centuries?

 

 

*****

 

MY EYES MAGNIFY A SPIDER

 

My eyes magnify a spider,

on a statue tying up a fly.

It scales threads into shadow

as though aware of being watched.

 

What if it could know a man?

If I stood in the light some visitor

might see me, detailed,

an angel might stare through my eyes.

 

*****

 

 

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