Dawn

Dawn (1)

i.m. Seamus Heaney, August 30, 2013

Yellow hedgerow gorse blinked and fell
at summer’s end on a hill slope waking wet
in dewy blessing. Sun sang in each bauble.
Fields clasped rosaries of ancient starlight.

It is time, sky and humbled clouds rolled on,
for silence to learn the silence of fierce sleep,
to learn the world’s living voice alive again
risen from pain to life to love to live in the deep

earthen footprints of fattened flocks grazing
the worried slides. Words are carved on wind
and filter boughs of father oaks phrasing
a spell from what was said and left behind,

never to be forgotten the way a shadow shows
the outline of a body wherever the soul goes.

 

[1] Poesie dalla raccolta Testing the Elements: Dawn (dedica); Myth p.12; Fox in the Fallen Snow p.22