Bones of Fire (November 2004)

... How many regions in space
that have already been
Inside me. There are winds
that seem like my
wandering son.

-- Rilke Sonnets To Orpheus, Book II, 1

... And Manannan heard the man say:
"I will give you love and home and
peace." The sea-woman listened to
that, and said: "And I will bring you
the homelessness of the sea, and
the peace of the restless wave, and
love like the wandering wind."

-- Fiona MacLeod, "The Children of the Water"

Wind and wave both stir
the lyre you house in me
with fates from distant
shores. Through this
opened window float
those voices as if rising
from some outermost
inside, washing through
the maples in the front yard
with a high soft chant.
Surely it was ferried here
on the backs of whales
as they hauled between
the iceberg and the gale,
lamped only the burning
wings of northern lights,
their booming spume
and diving drone
intoning the angelic
northernmost
Hyperborean name of God.
Let me render back
that cold driven wilderness:
and ride here those foaming steppes,
a million-mile prairie
bordered only by an
infinite sky and miles
of brine below. Let Thor
blow all his hammers
and Manannan reach
from the towering wave
to hand me his silver cup
from which all oceans
and ocean loves have poured.
Let shore-strewn stones reveal
their polar hearts,
still glowing with the
lucence of that drowned
constellation where we
coiled and plunged
through all the primal
names and woke up
alone to wander
on, like wind and wave,
between the ache of night
and waking dawn,
singing all the shores
that icy lonely distant
fire were written on.