Bright days like this I am caught,
each word ringing like glass
stag night
brake broken
arrow pheasant
rinse recipe
drink fire
lake listen
In the valley, strong-limbed youth clink up and
down ladders, finishing the trim under old eaves
of a Bed and Breakfast. I spy them from my glen,
dressed in white, their pails swinging, paint-spattered,
sundrenched skin. These two could be my sons
bantering words back and forth like balls
had I not rebuffed and been rebuffed by the boy gods,
Narcissus, Pan, retiring to the mountains and my
wild creatures; had I not been hunted down
by the goat man and scattered to the winds
by shepherds, would I now recognize my own
fragmented voice in theirs?
Every year I forget how voices carry like bells
from the village church, each word held
in the net of time, glistening, alive.
