BPR 40 | 2013
Two years passed, or twenty,
or two thousand. Your migration
strays to the edge of this gray marsh,
silent trembling of its waters.
You stand in the tatter of your
sole shirt, feet roped in same dull hide
that crossed the bridge of your origin,
vagrant without sense or decency to die.
A single black-headed gull strikes
silently against the wind. The murmur
around you neither gossip nor
greeting, just leaf, limb, and motion.
The ridge of pine and birch across
the lake, however, unbending,
jagged beneath a pale sky that refuses
the night its darkness.
So there, Ghost, is your compass.
Locate yourself in the body
and feel nothing. Drink deeply
of thought until no thought occurs.
You're just here, is all, arrived, riven,
unending. North, Ghost, north you go
until a mystery perhaps abandons,
perhaps reveals. You shall see.