I thought I recognised Sorley Maclean
walking towards me down Niagara Lane.
As he came alongside he said look up,
you can see our friend the sky where the tall buildings
lean in towards each other. I can see some glyphs
floating across up there. The in-between goes all
the way back to the well of darkness.
Sorry but I’m an analogist, and out of area.
Back on the corner the tree shadows had seemed
to scatter around his ankles. He said he was on his way
through, from Antofogasta to Calvary, reminded me
that the lamps are a super important part of the
hanging universe. We keep dreaming he said,
lonely as exoplanets. The hard thing, I know,
is losing one of your own. That always takes up a lot.
Then after a very long pause he said, there are no solutions.
What I always did was walk to the edge of the sea
and watch the fishermen where they haul their boats
in and the surge of the ebbless ocean.
Everything passes between islands, and take it from me
anything in art can be deferred, it’s free of the future.
I know you’ve read about my afflictions. And I was different then.
I wanted to ask him about sudden gusts of wind,
and the cries of memory, the unexpected turns
in full lives, like his, and the enigma of where people end up,
but he was gone. Round the corner and down the street.
The last thing I remember was his scarf, the blue of flax lilies.