Has to recharge sometimes, but otherwise it’s always with her.

I’d concluded I don’t know how to love without hating.

A. said I needed a break from meaning’s narrative, summary aspects,

should spend time with the natural phenomena no speculation can penetrate.

She said to surrender an idea will feel like a new idea.

I took a sleeping bag to a sheltered place, and set out my paraphernalia.

After dark, the sea a television in another room, only the audio reached me.

A sound like traffic. Or wind and rain.

Vague, like the fog in my clothes.

In fact, details of the world at large seemed radically redacted

and a person forced to extrapolate from context.

It’s said we must learn to live with our shame, but some people can escape it.

They leave it with someone else, to whom it then belongs.

When I woke, my throat was raw, as if I’d shouted all night, or sung.

Which I might have done, I don’t remember, I was so high.

SONG

The cliff face, open and soft // vulnerable, so near the Coastal Path // undermined

by the sea and the noise of the sea // backs away slowly, meets no eye //

Waters of the firth like dogs at a fence // and, behind them, May Island //

keeping to itself the authoritative word // scans the shore without turning its head //

III

SONG

In the blood month, the dormancies // in its feelings for us, the land cools //

and conversation runs toward the fee // Who once was a friend, we must guard against //

Thing creates thing beyond our compass // They confide in each other, but not in me //

Between silence and language omens proliferate // A queue of seeds in the ground //

A LESSON

The tide rises, a crowd returning from a stadium,

abstract sound of innumerable specifics

reentering the shoreline’s boroughs. Wheels clatter

on the rocks of your driveway, headlamps light the wall.

A door opens in the place in you joy leaps to.

There’s puttering in the kitchen. Close your eyes.

What might happen this cycle has happened, and a promise kept —

the nightmare rocks and fingery weed-beds banished —

though something more important kicking off elsewhere

already has the water’s attention. Yet again it prepares to withdraw

even its neglect. Tidal pools are exposed,

their smell of mortal exchanges.

Nothing exists in darkness that doesn’t in the light.

Once, this comforted you.

THE INTERCESSORS

At our disposal are the tools, the DIY project kit.

The project is ourselves. He doesn’t talk lack, doesn’t

think lack, He thinks like a millionaire, why shouldn’t we?

It’s our spiritual heritage to secure our prosperity.

The Air1 Team meets daily to forward requests

to the Mighty Warriors Intercessors

Army. Terry from Paisley, who needs help with rent,

whose back pain arouses the neighbours’ judgment,

may well be annoyed appeals for prayers

that Tiger the cat be completely cured including cancer