Born of peat bogs, mud pools
their earth bodies rock,
sandy-featured granite-eyed;
the hill is alive with ghosts.
We feast on minerals taste salt
and metal, the substance of soil
tongued. Our eyes in the dark
like voles, yellow seeing
hazy outline of movements
curling around tight space
dark has given us, reduced
dimensions and intimate
motions, the pulse of nothing,
the turning violent heart-rended
subtraction that leaves
us pawing at distances
our long claws tracking
passage back through caverns;
our hands sense
cool rock to act as guide. In the dark
we see with fingertips
the journey the after the before
relying on the twists of sensation,
its removal and demands,
to take us home.