Path of Darkness III
 
 

              Harrow

       O Winnower of Souls
       O Wind,
       what do you care?
       How do you call compassion
       out of the waiting air?

       Lift like snow plume
       out of the untracked
       mountain curve,
       immaculate the seamless frost
       in dry cold air
       I know you stir,
       indifferent in passion,
       shiverer.

               Who will reweave me?
               Who will rage on my behalf
               who weave no wanting here
               out of a silenced heart?

               Wind -
               teach surrender
               who myself unbind
               these curious searches
               while the stars unwind.

       O Gatherer of Souls
               you snatch warmth
               out of my lung,
               remoan the howling
               hollow whistle:
               and, tied thrall,
               beat mindless flap
               a flax mat
               on a window
               shorn of glass.

       Anguish Unhealer
               voice of lost souls
               return!

       out from the sea
               buffet and fling-
               numbly,
               bewildered,
               now enter
               me.

       Wise knife

               frost sear the wound
               from the limb,
               in the joint
               dwell
               like a blow,
               in the hole of my bone-
                       ache!

               Hell harrow
               dawn of darkness
               you become.
                       I am
                       awake
                       whole-body numb
               pin prickle dazzle
               in return of blood
               frost foot and frozen heart
               the burnished hollow
               caverning my mind
                       Vigilance
               on pause
               light cracks
               this waking hill,
               this soft cave's
               opening
               fire on the beach,
               breakfast
                       drifts smoke.
                       twig
               burst - who comes?
               foot scramble on the cliff
               above
                       one comes

                               oh stand
       and search,     one comes at last
               seeks love's dead mother
               through the wind burned grass

               Who?
               who comes there?
                    calls?
               Who

                       seeks the bare bitter place
                       and long return
                       my voice in the wind
                       seaming the lost lovely sea
                       towards Hawaiki?

                               Who is here?