The world is raw.
In bold minutes I�ve learned
the truest shivers think.
As though lone watchers
of assailing horizon,
lifting their grazing eyes to cringe
into the jagged and certain smoke
that carves all things too true.
Those shivers coldly clamber;
their grasp is most sincere.
From what deep coil of laughter
do these impressions peer?
To what compelled disaster
do frozen thoughts adhere?
To what long eyes in winter
do the nights exhale their fear?
How clenched the burning brittle?
How splintered limbs of birch
peel off their scraps of night,
make of the blight a torch!
This torch is gorged on dark.
What silence ploughs above
the kiltered flicker of the spark
that marks this ghastly love?
I
I�ve known lust since I was born
for pangs that carry on the air�
droplet notes and woman-song�
deeply sugars for the just-begun.
A line is read, a truth is sung;
I watch it bloom and then disclose
its fullest warmth, so winter�s on the wind.
I take a breath and hold the heat
to keep me whole while ice packs in my world.
I take the lonely road away, and there
am sure to find, in wamth,
traces of my voice
in its first tantrums here.
Lodge Garden Greenhouse