(iv) Night’s woods

My voice is carried further back
than ever before by night’s wood,
inwards,
across the border,
seeking in me sounds
of pain, confusion,
without a carrier wave,
burning, never breaking.

Shapes – unwordly flaming to the child -
a way up, outwards,
covering the ground
with worded warmth,
− a fenix’s fire fills out
to become tree, holy to night’s woods −
as a blanket to my life.
                                                                                                             
That does not stop the pain from
distorting, mangling that which
lives hidden behind boundaries
of my knowing self
 (no child will sing true
when harmony is a stranger to the parents).

You, my love, sense
what I cannot
(perhaps from some place behind, beyond
your own boundaries?) - my father’s biting
voice breaking through,
begrudging my mother her art…

No shared pain, it is a
double edged blade of pain −
lemniscating points, each
upright as a menhir.

On the day we met, so long ago,
birthed a dream
growing stronger each minute
we spend sleeping in each other’s arms…

it is like a breath
slowly wearing away the stone,
a new world becoming body.