View from an Island
I am a Russian Doll
now—that doesn’t matter:
land within land,
heart of a Navajo.
Sacred painting’s
yellow ochre,
my skirt
trimmed with lichen.
Eyes like a lighthouse,
those ambiguous beacons.
Something is lost
crossing the heather:
the craggy beauty
of an old woman’s throat,
the mellow man’s joy—
brief, repeating.
Something is lost
to the morning’s mackerel
as they slap Halleluiah
Halleluiah
at the soles of my feet.
To journey on the backs
of fishes, to follow
the boats to England—
But to wait,
a core of bog-burned oak
paganishly burnished
by a fisherman’s will…
– ren powell