Anam Cara

First lines

I

Air Holds Echo

They are to be admired those survivors

What did you see (when you went out)

As it leaves (the sea inscribes)

You caught him out, (the one form)

On the day when (the weight deadens)

Where did you go (when your eyes closed)

Not (the blue light of his eyes)

I envy (the slow old)

No (don’t cry)

Was it evening in Barcelona, when

II

Hungers of Distance

Beneath me sleep

I am not sure you (live anywhere, no)

The Good Friday altar is bleak

Oh (the white utopia)

Receive the night

A thurible swings (longingly)

The moon (came down)

Too long stranded in the air, the land loves

This land would like to fold

Near me (scents of bath oil)

I wish for (swiftness)

I sit, alert (behind the small window)

Through this fester of bony earth, trying

The first breath of morning breaks the dark enough

It is an old habit to praise the light

Left unto itself, the earth is one field

The undertaker has a low, slow voice

In the beginning

III

Clay Holds Memory

November’s hunger strips the fields, its thin light

The clay (first breathed)

Night would not let me in

These stones in the wild

The dark inside us is sistered outside

From where she is (he seems singular)

Tight ground (grips you)

Concealed within daylight

She has become (a country woman)

Impaled in fright

In the sunday church

Under the frame (of their stubborn farm)

Since what is (gradual becomes less)

No blind hubris (did this to her)

IV

Icons of Love

Our love is (a sister of the light)

Before this line of shore was touched by tide

Pain can turn the heart’s cradle

Winter colours creep (towards you, cold)

After (all the words)

My love, (your questions)

I can no longer trust my voice, its white

I would send a raven

A circle of white wind

From you (I don’t want anything new)

Your clear shoulder (when the clothes have gone)

The flow of your voice

This evening (everything rests)

It gave us (the hungry landscapes)

I am gone, further out now