ins_alal@jhunix.UUCP (cloudbuster) (07/29/86)
ivy'! honest!
Forty and one
i
Even though I have passed
through countless infinities
of light
still you push me on,
to go through
the quiet lies of your
faith, the ringing in my ears of
the bell in the small church
that stands alone on Lowton Hill.
Without a word to anyone, at
night you journey silently to
the bell tower, where you sit and
determine whose turn it will be
next, for you have pushed them
all.
ii
Through these forty and one gehennas I have walked.
Slowly, slowly I have
watched the setting sun falling
behind those mountains, slipping
under the earth.
I have seen the squirrels and mice that
creep out slowly to cluster round me
in the dusk, to wonder at my size
and purpose,
and I laugh.
iii
It's quiet here.
I am afraid to speak
a word,
afraid to whisper in the gathering dusk.
Under the ivy,
down near the earth,
is a small band of marauding ants.
They carry pieces of dead bird
to their palaces, where they will feast later.
I stand here, watching them scurry,
hurrying back to their homes beneath the ground.
I stand before the last trickles of sun
and let them sting.
Soon enough, it will be morning,
and I will scorch and blister.
iv
From here I can see beyond the mist-fringed mountains,
out to where the sea touches the slow horizon.
I can see all the way to Lowton Hill, and
if I squint, I can see you sitting there, next to the
stone and cobble church.
Now I am here, an island on an island.
You amuse me, the way you are sitting--
hands on feet, elbows to stomach.
Once I watched you for hours.
You never moved.
v
Many years have passed since I last ventured out beyond
the great grey mountains with their hats of white ice and
the wild watchful waves.
Still you sit alone on the hill, without
a word to anyone.
Almost as if
this time,
it was your turn.
--
Laurah Limbrick @ Johns Hopkins University
arpa: ins_alal%jhunix.BITNET@wiscvm.WISC.EDU
uucp: ...{ihnp4!whuxcc | seismo!umcp-cs | allegra!hopkins} !jhunix!ins_alal
"Help this blackbird--there's a stone around my leg..."