poems

Past and Present, Future Perfect

Name changer, shape shifter, flight maker
You come and then you stayed
But I can't see you.
Here but hidden
Cloaks of darkness and of light
They shield me from the words I need
To form you in my soul.
I think I might remember there
A blacksmith and an anvil
With sparks that flew up in the dark
And noise and no real comfort
In anything but strength
Of arm and hand on iron
And iron on iron,
And sounds familiar, high notes and low,
Not the music I know,
All soft focus in heated rooms,
My dull ears not hearing
That sort of sonorous crash
From earth's core through ages to then.
Men
With hammers on anvils,
Driving steel into spirits
And sparks that fly into the night.
Do not let that dilute.
Take what is distilled from that generation to this
Leapfrog the wringing out in between:
Take heart, those years have no consequence
If you don't let it.
So I won't try to grab the cover off me,
Peer through the darkness
Or blink in the light.
That knowledge can't come through idle thought
Or idol gaze.
It's there already,
Step back in.
I came and stayed and am there still
Before my ears got dull 
To anvil strikes.




© Clare Dwyer Hogg