He leads us up to the foot of the hill,
but there we stop: not yet for us
to take those final steps.
Where the sun stands still
on earth’s high curve, a woman rises:
bright black splayed on red.
Crone, maid, mother? We cannot know.
But she knows him and opens wide her cloak:
black wings promise rest and old night.
In weary hope he mounts the hill:
one last walking, always to her.
In death as in life, to her.
The sun kneels now on the high horizon;
two silhouettes conjoin. When her wings close,
she stands alone.
And then she too is gone.
The sun’s last day slips behind the hill,
and we stand alone in the night.
Hearth-fire waits, and the cup filled full,
the table and song and stillness.
And we too wait and watch the night,
hoping for a birth at dawn.
For Tony Kelly
Minneapolis, 2005