The Voice in the Wind

I

A muffled parcel of oak and birch,
beech and I, drawn here for refuge.

Brittle as bells, leaves peal out
– a round – wind-wrung, each peal an end

and a start. A silence of snow falls.
Traces pass.  Bright, bleary, gone.

A layering of pasts, the path
that splits the copse, a spill of scar and pock,

markers of disease, and war
with brine and thorn.  A way

perpetually lost and won,
way of wounds and death and bearing.

A clearing – a slippery mouth –
a gape-worm throat, choking

in its own mud, on teeth
gouged from pagan flint.

A dome of tongues, the leaves here,
retracting at each lash of wind.

And from out of the wind, a voice.

II

The kitchen clock is ticking.
The cat purrs before the fire.

Around my feet, snow puddles.
A leaf falls from my coat,

cup-shaped, tempered by tempest.
Improbable barque, sail-less,

without wind, compass, crew,
it launches across the pool,

impelled by the reflection of a flame,
flickering against its hull.

Ann Isik