This night is when I think of you,
all together, not one missed place
at table or ache in my heart.
We are what we come from, the blood
and the white bones beneath the earth,
the wind wailing ’cross the mountain.
We are the river running to
the ocean, the waves on the strand,
the quick flick of the hare’s white scut,
the blackbird’s song in the rowans.
I try to explain the hunger,
the land left behind in grieving,
the hope in children not yet born,
but the past is a foreign land.
I listen for your voices still,
in this owl-soft night, and I weep.
Jane Dougherty Writes 