The Words St. Oran's Day, 2000 David Cohea   He had always walked among these standing stones as a son sworn to raise his own. The touch of them always chilled him too deep, in places where no words sufficed. Now he needs these mute agons more than life. He sits in the bell tower staring up at a bare sky as if that were prayer enough. Walks out onto the field with its ring of tall stones almost as old as the stars. Traces with his finger the bones of trilobites and other long-squandered tribute of the sea. Help me surrender he whispers to the glacial ossuary. In the forest a breeze runs like a stream through almost-bare oaks and maples. Help me find the words. He sits on a stone in the glen with autumn seeping up and in, mixing like mortar in his blood. Something hauls him into the words like the sudden cold wind which grabs the last leaves and sends then spiraling down like falling angels of gold. David Cohea lives currently in Orlando, Florida.