The last bed excavated, the long minute hand
Upright on the hour,
The years in pain scored up are scattered and their tower
Down: time at a stand.
And upright on horizons of storm the monumental crosses,
Lone shafts like the spade
Haunting the furrow’s end, flourish when man’s unmade
Wedged in stones, sunk in mosses —
Aching an upright femur can feel the tough roots close
Gently over bone, stick
Fast holding a smooth shaft. Only the flesh such strict
Embraces knows.
Turn west now, turn away to sleep
And you are simultaneous with
Maelduin setting sail again
From the island of the white cat
To the high penitential rock
Of a spiked Donegal hermit —
With Odysseus crouching again
Inside a fish-smelling sealskin
Or Anticlus suffocating
Back in the wooden horse’s womb
As he hears his wife’s voice calling.
Turn westward, your face grows darker
You look sad entering your dream
Whose long currents yield return to none.