Poem for the month

home

blind man
came to the isle, said
now I have parameters
I hear the surf
I hear the birds my eyes
can’t map which way
they come          my hands
can’t tell their shape
the voices of          the wind
and birdsong tell me
all I need to know

Aonghas MacNeacail (1942 – 2022)

from Rock and Water (1990:Polygon)

I like this poem because it suggests that in giving attention to the wildness at the edge of our lives our sense of ‘home’ might be expanded.

IM