Anam Cara

WORDS

For Ethel and Sheila

Words may know the way to reach the dark

Where the wild sweetness of a hillside

Is distilled in a hive under grass.

Words may tell how the rhythm of tide

Can soften its salt-voice on the shore

Through music it steals when stone confides.

Words may capture how the ravens soar

In silk black selves far into the blue

To seek the nest of night’s colour hoard.

Words may live under ground out of view

Holding a vanished world etched in scrolls

Under sands where streets lay and youth grew.

When the red vapour breathes through the soul

And pain closes down the ease of the day

Words stagger back to silence and fold.