The Light Migrant

The Light Migrant

The Light Migrant

If a plant grows towards blueness,
  the light it needs to feed on,
     it’s dark that lets it flower – the far red
        of dusk, a switch to set day’s edge.
 
Your skin is clock and calendar,
   gauging the length of night you need,
      the silence of what may remain
         unsaid and slake your deepest root.
 
Ten thousand miles away,
   your body remembers the weight
      of the muddy field you left behind,
         weathered stones, monochrome;
 
the brisk omens of sky-changes:
   a bowl you know in your bones
      if it’s full or empty, scattered
         with northern stars, the moon’s salt eye.
 
Home’s heathery weft unravelled,
   you are exposed – infra-red,
      ultra-violet – bleached by extrovert
         sunlight.  A flower transplanted,
 
earthed in fire, not knowing which senses
disclose where to lean, when to open.