For Linda Norgrove

They intended to take you to a distinct place
(from the spring of the well by the boundary mark),
Now it teaches that farness can never come near
Or infinity compass affinity’s hold.

You came back to your father’s plain balladic name
And they followed you there, crofters of sharper hills,
Bringing handfuls of honour’s dried, unclearanced earth.

Difference, not variance, had been on your mind.
But the things that did not change, too, held you in thrall,
Long before anything, or one else; longer after.

Contact

What stray regret, or accidental mood
Could have been interrupted, with their night?
How is it we can stay sure, doing wrong,
Why and when it will happen; for how long
Were they left then that charily cold light?

Moved to resist the electronic gong
I turned it over and again, my song,
Particularity condensed to crude;
Touching the cell of ether with small right
Feels just on the consoling side of lewd.