It is December
and the slate inversion makes pale
the smoke of Oslo

that in any other year
would call to mind dancing,
and the red bark of the pine tree—

touched by these murmuring voices,
a northern pastorale
full of the confession of frost—

grieves. And now I shall return
to a place where even the ground
is hollow.

The land not very long of my ancestors.
I bear their slow nomadism
in my body and fear

that, though alone,
I am every one of those strange,
poor men and women

who understood that they were incapable
of making a home of the inconsiderate
soil between their toes.

I will be there for solstice,
the day I am constantly preceding
despite my walking—

despite the memory of bluebells,
and water, and a thin and paper dark
made of halfway things.