The Lilith-Land

Bats fluttering like eyelashes on grit.

Glaucoma light. The Lilith-land endusked.

The screech-owl calls. Familiar she intones—

To whom, to whom.

Stopped bothering to ask

Whose time and tide they’re tolling now.

Now star by star, the constellations fall—

The cattle in the strawbeds strewn

Shut safe from pasture’s hunger.

Shut safe from starving frosts;

Shut safe from errant bridleways they’d roam

Grown cuckoo-fat on fallowed cud and clover;

Tramping the bluebells’ innocence in spring—

Or hapless soul, just happening to stray

In calving-time, besides the cloven fence—

This Lilith-land. The cloven hooves hold sway.

Bent willow-woods weave lattices in pairs.

Thrust deep in dirt. Thrust deep enough to hold

Bare earth in bounds.

Still waiting to be clothed

Unfurling hazel, lovely in its furze;

The wicker-working arteries and nerves

Mark ley-lines on this Lilith-land twice bare

Unclothed in skin; bare liquiescent guts

And lidless eyes on Adam fixed

Raw laughter through the larynx shudders

“Boy—

Scarce born a day; dares call himself a man—

Then prove it, man. Your mettle and your worth—

Come fetter me in stakes.

Come, husband mine. Come husband with your hand

This rude, unfinished flesh.

Come grasp my neck; the cervix lying bare,

Come seed this wild-pulsed womb—

My generations bound unto your blood.

Since man thou art. Try fixing me in bounds.”