I GRIEVE ELUSIVELY SOLO IN THE COMPANY OF ROCKS

I GRIEVE ELUSIVELY SOLO IN THE COMPANY OF ROCKS

I grieve elusively solo in the company of rocks

whose skulls have been glacially removed

as a chipper breeze intrigues the trees

with the rumours of distinguished extinctions to come.

O my prophetic heads, my exilic deaths,

is the moon an ally or not as she adds

her waterlily to the swamp like a nautical poem

that agitates the ricocheting shadows of the bats.

Witch broth looking for human body parts.

The night broods over the death of a wren

like someone just getting into the arts

hangs on the hook of the muse with bookish allure,

but nothing bites. The fish are wide-eyed and wary.

The wonder of stars applies a poultice to my heart.

We reciprocally heal for a moment. Dark woods

and the wolves are howling over the corpse of the hills.

Snapping turtles sleep in my starmud like the helmets

of World War One, and I dream of wild swans

passing overhead like Albireo and Deneb

in the Summer Triangle wedging its way west.

My life inches toward its setting like an astrolabe of bones.

Mortal arcs of dubious exaltations. No constellation

marks the spot like a seeing eye dog in the dark,

and love dies cowering in sighs of lyrical bewilderment.

PATRICK WHITE