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.