Glossing The Spoils

THE SINGERS

You have never heard such singing as theirs

but when their song is most pleasant to you

a great moaning and groaning comes

towards you through the valley.

Owein, or the Countess of the Fountain

After I lose you, grief,

fasting, prayer, cloistered

in a tiny, rented room

meditating six hours a day,

up from my pelvis, navel, heart

a flock of white birds tears

open my inward gaze, exploding

out of my throbbing skull,

a storm clearing the air.

You have never heard such singing as theirs.

Hundreds of voices carol

to the tinkling of silver necklets, chaining

the flock together to draw something

across the sky, or out of me:

a liquid gold, a concentrated

fire oozes, pouring through

the tingling hole they’ve pierced

between my eyes, dense gold,

my body its melancholic residue.

But when their song is most pleasing to you,

as I imagine you, imagine holding you,

a low base note rattles out

from where their necklets yoke

together to empty me to death.

Their wings rush above its pulse

that rasps at my eardrum,

too small to hear the birds for long;

too alone, too afraid. Cloud shadows,

they depart, leaving me stunned.

A great moaning and groaning comes

 like the keening after lost kin,

played on a crude pipe, with sympathies

for lightning and muted thunder.

I hear weeping inside, outside, as drops

of water blacken a stone, rain

stone, storm stone an off-key

crow scratches at and pecks.

With my muddy feet and my knapsack

full of lost chances, I will journey

towards you through the valley.