Vigil

I remember the years of our slumber. Someone
            had wounded you, and you could not say.

A young man hung above you, in briar.
            Years happened. Fire. The wind blew the walls

away.  I drifted
            in a spruce wood, bluebells matting

the acres. Go to Spain, you
            said. I went to Spain. The sea

was white where I traveled. Milk-deep. Brimming
            with opal. I smelled the darkening

pines of a mooring, the ripening
            cliffs of another. Something was rising

from the fathoms. I thought of rooms at the edge
            of a pasture, hornets

dismantling their rafters. Of a dark wave rising
            from your body, its music

in my hands, no harbor.
            Of the wind, of the word

of your hours, its hand clasped over 
            its whisper, like a monk in a shattering

cloister. Of the horrible Archer
            in the star-lanes, laying his bow

on my whisper.
            Of his strength. Of the taste

of his armor. He was No One. He was never 
            our father.

He was going to shoot me out farther
            where I could visit you no more.