(To Wuthering Heights)
As if in sleep she walked alone,
her subconscious stalked as a companion,
it is significantly strange
when darkness fell upon her,
on those settlements below
to see them, ‘gleam as small change’,
the beauty rising from her words
departs somewhat from what I’m told,
for there is no doubt in my mind
she reimbursed a thousand-fold,
and to her soul, her underlying tragedy
my wreathe is laid unto her mystery:
A long journey, a tiny creature,
a tired, winged migrant,
I wonder, did it call her then
through a rising mist like this,
was it wild October, calm and damp,
a state of empathy with mind
over moors to ‘Wuthering Heights’,
Did she see, standing in grey gloom
that old rusted barn, with tin-bell,
could she hardly see as I do, or hear
it tinkling to and fro, or feel it’s
gentle swing by moderate air flow,
did she look back, forlorn
to see her tracks, her past
banish her from sight,
lose what once was her true self
lost to the surrounding fog
and her coming nightfall!
Was she left within the moment
to brood and dwell on bleak things,
did she listen to the bleat of sheep
as I do now in isolated spaces,
undisturbed to graze there,
suddenly to loom, appear to she
who stared back as the uninvited,
as the thinning fog rose higher,
looking like unwilling hosts,
was she an unexpected guest too
looking ghostly from another world,
would she entreat me now to leave them
in her unknown peaceful place,
grazing on their ancient land,
she does not see heather now
or the tangled silver roots that
‘invite the whitening of her bones.’
More at roykaustin.weebly.com.