This is the story of a man and a woman
under a willow and beside a weir
near a river in a wooded clearing.
They are fugitives.Intimates of myth.
Fictions of my purpose.I suppose
I shouldn't say that yet or at least
before I break their hearts or save their lives
I ought to tell their story and I will.
When they went first it was winter,cold,
cold through the Midlands and as far West
as they could go.They know they had to go -
through Meath,Westmeath,Longford
their lives unravelling like the hours of light-
and then there were lambs under the snow
and it was January,aconite and jasmine
and the hazelyellowing and puce berries on the ivy.
They could not eat where they had cooked,
nor sleep where they had eaten,
nor at dawn rest where they had slept.
They shunned the densities
of trees with one trunk and of caves
with one dark and the dangerous embrace
of islands with a single landing place.
And all the time it was cold,cold:
the trees stiched with snow overnight,
the ditches full;frost toughening lichen,
darning lace into rock crevices.
And then the woods flooded and buds
blunted from the chestnut and the foxglove
put its big leaves out and chaffinches
chinked and flirted in the branches of the ash.
And here we are where we started from-
under a willow and beside a weir
near a river in a wodded clearing.
The woman and man have come to rest.
Look how light is coming through the ash.
The weir sluices kingfisher blues
The woman and the willow tree lean forward,forward
Something is near,something is about to happen;
something more than spring
and less than history.Will we see
hungers eased after months of hidings
Is there a touch of heat in that light?
If they stay here soon it will be summer;things
returning,sunlight fingering ... deeps
seedy greens,reeds,electing lights
and edges from the river.Consider
legend,self deception,sin,the sum of human purpose and its end;remember
how our poetry depends on distance,
aspect;gravity will bend starlight.
