Robert James Berry - two poems Cape Here tales conceive and become, Like the eels in the slate waters There are rough silent watchers in the insides of hills The ache of north is in the sleet The giant thews of basalt The Skerries are the Ocean's teeth torn up by the roots Their wind skins you all night This is the cape of cloud, Frontier of ice Motion me back I am one of this tribe I have writing to make House morning and evening shadows walk the cracked walls The thick chalk paint peels and the wooden window shutters split The hot season can coax voices from this house Open its broken binding like a book Read the histories thumbed on the pages of the rooms Angles corners rubbed soft loved yellow The arthritic bones of the ceiling beams ache above me and like the leaves not swept from the courtyard Time accumulates and drifts slowly Later I shall stalk my ancestors Draw up close under their sun beaten wrinkles Watch this black ink fix to their heavy frowns Before I close up the house
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