January, 5

BY ALISON FELL

Off Lindisfarne

the waves shiver like monks

at their ablutions.

Under high horizontals

of ice-cloud, the sky

scrubbed clean as a dairy.

The train darts north,

hungry as a tongue.

Only the exile longs for

the words to name a country:

either live it or learn,

at a bare table,

ancestral silence, like a rumble

deep in the loch's throat,

the forgotten song

of the curling-stone,

the snow slipping like white meat

from the bones of the mountain.

from Lightyear: poems by Alison Fell

*This poem is only being used for educational purposes. All credit goes to Alison Fell for writing this poem. Danserver does not affiliate with Alison Fell, or any of her affiliates.