FROM ZAGREB

This morning sinks down into its own

light which is also familiar

to know a place and to be comfortable—

comforted even by constancy—

everything returns as Nietzsche said—

doesn’t mean you must belong to it

unless belonging spreads itself like this

shallow-rooted as trackside fireweed

or like graffiti’s wild organic forms

blossoming at the station               seed themselves

trackside on power boxes and palaces

with broken windows that let in the sun

lozenge by lozenge and it’s strange you know

the colour that light makes on wooden boards

and how old plaster smells           this is the south

after another summer          starting here

in all the ways you know the bog oak turned

among the turning willows and the pale

cement embankment of a river shining

in the morning sun these things unfold

pulled by a red tractor like an eye catcher

every journey tells a story like a dream

the tangled woods still delicate with mines

the hunters’ hides piercing the maize like threats

and if a train stops unexpectedly

you see late wasps return return returning

to a branch on the embankment as if

you only recognise the thing you know

already so that your life increasingly

returns to what you loved some first morning

and every place that’s loved too much decays

through repetition so you must choose

to keep on moving though you thread these towns

and fields with a mind that goes running about 

through them touching cement and birch leaves freely

like sunlight local here and everywhere.

Listen. Wind

is coming down

the hill in judgment

through the dark

it moves like a

new law

the sky is not

your friend the night

is not your home

therefore lie

carefully

under the sheet

so your errors

won’t be tallied

You thought

this was home

but the cold hill

we call earth

has turned its back

on visitors

like us who dwell

in dark rooms

beneath a roof

It lies

horribly pale

in the dark

horribly

exposed out there

on the hill

of itself