Читать книгу Ordinary Time - Michael D. Riley - Страница 15

Bones cold as these stones,

leggings scratching pimpled skin,

carrying nothing but time,

a crooked stick and motherless lamb,

not one of us lucky enough

to be even half-drunk.

Stars so many points of ice

save one glowing through

an orange shroud, driving

its crossed spears of light

into the frozen ground.

This star seems to move,

setting small fires to the backs

of the sheep, their spindly shanks

and dark eyes too much like ours.

I grow uneasy. What I knew

leaves me as mist, breath.

My body, a dusty window,

fills with light. I hear singing,

harmonies like my own voice.

Hearing of this birth,

I thought of my father and son,

myself both son and father.

One more child of this local dirt.

I move without moving

through sheep who stare

and chew, drift over hills

I knew once, to a cave’s golden

mouth, myself a shadow

thrown against the golden wall,

slowly entering.