Here There Is This Land

Where are the magpies? Where the ruined cathedrals; where the exiled birds behind broken stones that once made their homes in the hollow heads of saints? Here there in this land there is corn, and the industry of dust. Wooden barns and wooded farm houses that even as they live, they dwell in the last days. I need a hill to howl upon. I need the North Woods to hunt my enemy in. In those snow gripped forests he would also be my guide and friend, my magpie. Let him make his nest in the warm hollow of my chest while I cool and turn to stone far from home.