Morning in the Burned House

But the trick is just to hold on

through all appearances; and so we do,

and yes, I know it’s you;

and that is what we will come to, sooner

or later, when it’s even darker

than it is now, when the snow is colder,

when it’s darkest and coldest

and candles are no longer any use to us

and the visibility is zero: Yes.

It’s still you. It’s still you

I used to say I’d know you anywhere,

but it’s getting harder.

Every cell

in our bodies has renewed itself

so many times since then, there’s

not much left, my love,

of the originals.

The moon

doesn’t care about its own

craters and bruises. Only we can regret

the perishing of the burned place.

Only we could call it a wound.

If she were here she would

reach out her arms towards

you now, and touch you

with her absent hands

and you would feel nothing, but you would be

touched all the same.

No one can enter that circle

you have made, that clean circle

of dead space you have made

and stay inside,

mourning because it is clean.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor; time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.

Everything bad you can imagine

is happening somewhere else, or happened

here, a hundred years or centuries

ago.

In the daylight we know

what’s gone is gone,

but at night it’s different.

Nothing gets finished,

not dying, not mourning;

Only one day remains,

the one you’re in.