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.