Migrant

My father speaks in lyric tongues.
And there is something tragic in his eyes.
A stoney fire beneath the salt moon runs,
And flickers bright to see the swallows fly.

An autumn man of smoke and bracken burnt,
Who walks on granite, foam and spit of sea.
The shadows' play of heart and bone was learnt,
Through darkening woods of briars torn by me.

We've sat as quiet stones in houses sealed,
The language finds its' place to soothe the mind.
He speaks of life, of what becomes revealed,
In silent , sober, steady truth: not kind.

Of what I know, I feel I need not speak.
You close love out with words but hold it deeper,
If changeling child I seemed, it was to seek,
the sight of waking peace among the sleepers,
Who held me shut, in tunnels made of words,
that were not mine:they scatter on this breeze.
And now I sing to share the flight of birds,
The stars, my words, with real and tender ease.