TWO NEW POEMS
By PHILIP OAKES
Facing the North
To invoke the north is a necessary pain When winter.trims the marrow in the bone, A whistle in the right quarter Raises a wind to chap the heart To freeze its painful action and relate Its workings to a greater age of ice.
Heat is consumed by-the greedy sun, No rain falls that will not reach the sea, The elements proclaim their unity And only man denies his true relation.
Except in this emergency, when love Cannot dig its nightly grave And burrows back towards the family: Then fire in waiting swallows fire; The steeples rock with wedding air And rivers ring the sinking hill.
All is effected by this necessary pain, A chosen injury designed to bruise The open wound and make anonymous The brand that burns the mortal man.
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