I have never been
alone in the North
at night and so far
from everything and everyone
that I could not hear the hum
of voices in my head
or the clang and whistle
of the iron way.
But I have been at the spot
where the sound of the whistling beast,
the steel and the weight of it,
was the spooking call,
the sound of the plunging dark;
where the honey-scented mortal thing
weaving through the sweet thorns,
beneath the clouded light of stars,
waved along by the wet-grass fairies,
is certain to arrive in the spying dawn
that whispers hints and rumors
and promises to fill
the heart’s desire
to be forever lost.
I have been there.
I have been there.
And I will go again.
