I tramp the boundaries of this skin, slip
Down clavicle drifts and barefoot skate
On a frozen solar plexus where
We settled in exile and waited
For winter to strip the pine.
When the ice sheets retreated,
We headed south to stalk migrating
Spring across the steppes and meet
The solstice on a ripe Pangaean peninsular.
I bathe in whale tides and chase
The shade of fading frontiers to the edge of the end
And back to beginnings. The land bridges of Lyonesse
Have lapsed in the west; the Summer Country sinks
In continental drift; titans rise in the Urals.
When night is as long as waning day,
I climb the Apennine spine and coil
In downy pores; rainstorms roar.
I trace bipedal prints
Along the tundra and glimpse
His face in glaciers. In Lascaux,
I painted the Hall of the Bulls for him,
Headstrong as he knows he is.
At Wilmington, I laid against
His navel, caressed an ode
In the Cumbric tongue
And kept his cave,
His threshold, clean.
The others eye my paradigm,
Flinch at the flint-like linguistic shift.
Receding, they shrug in unwritten mists.
At night, the comets sing of him.
I tramp the boundaries of this skin.
Cliff James
Down clavicle drifts and barefoot skate
On a frozen solar plexus where
We settled in exile and waited
For winter to strip the pine.
When the ice sheets retreated,
We headed south to stalk migrating
Spring across the steppes and meet
The solstice on a ripe Pangaean peninsular.
I bathe in whale tides and chase
The shade of fading frontiers to the edge of the end
And back to beginnings. The land bridges of Lyonesse
Have lapsed in the west; the Summer Country sinks
In continental drift; titans rise in the Urals.
When night is as long as waning day,
I climb the Apennine spine and coil
In downy pores; rainstorms roar.
I trace bipedal prints
Along the tundra and glimpse
His face in glaciers. In Lascaux,
I painted the Hall of the Bulls for him,
Headstrong as he knows he is.
At Wilmington, I laid against
His navel, caressed an ode
In the Cumbric tongue
And kept his cave,
His threshold, clean.
The others eye my paradigm,
Flinch at the flint-like linguistic shift.
Receding, they shrug in unwritten mists.
At night, the comets sing of him.
I tramp the boundaries of this skin.
Cliff James