.across the long grey-blue limpid line of

coast, smell of fire.
the mother reaching— —

and turning now

and still and whitely into light—
((and the child-

                             ren

now one voice calling

one 
noise))
.at first lick all loveliness—gone.

.at.first.touch— —
—grey of Scotland, grey of dusk-gone-dark-

just, grey of heather shallow in the bay

and on the dunes, grey of lavender-ash where

blooms were sucked into the immortal

crime, grey of what was done and not done

enough, grey of babies’ turning, turning to

their mother’s black-grey eyes, grey of last look,

grey of grace of death, of not-black not-white

not-living not-dead, last of all grey of dawn,

grey of the long and silent day when

they are not heard here

                                                    again

ever.
At evening and in the bay, the constant

grey that takes the vision, takes the breath

away

as if a ship in mist, as if a mother

turning—
voice tenderest tendril

last of all

last plume

the voice calling

still heard, still carried—
—as air inside the head, inside the ear,

for years, for all the years of anyone

who stood by watching the fire—

the day that lasted years—

and watched the turning and did not know

then

it doesn’t end. Every mother turns, every mother

thinks—Is that my child?