It was wilderness, good saint,
You healed me in.
It was bare night and forest,
It was late heroic winter,
Broken branches, snow
Piled and the furious shining of stars
Against the walls-
Only ourselves in the house.
A place that stood in childhood, lost from the world:
Window, a mild candle, wool coverlet, white bed....
I think what flared in my body was fever.
I think my eyes burned bright wet.
Your spread your fingers in my hair. I
Became tenderly stiller than
The far, first most secret thought of change.
Among the thousand ages
A winter lost
Imprinted with bright fever.
But our bodies do not forget.
Mine carries your gesture.
I have known you in a place that stands forever in childhood.
Good saint, we can go back there
If you touch me.
We can be safe again in the spelled woods
As they gather toward the silence of a candle
Held gold against winter long ago.