OUTPOST

A last branch in a shard of wind,
your lurch into the sprawling light.
A tongue of land after one more leap,
a flash through a slash of leaves.

After bridging gaps, finding short cuts,
exhausting all the possible paths,
in the dirt and nettles,
just moving forward.

So, you have arrived,
a faded grey cabin, a corrugated roof
rattling, reaching
into the tendons of the sea.

And the space of the bare here and now,
fierce essentials you take in one by one,
a squeaking metal door, grazed threshold,
empty walls, a table, a chair, a bed,

all brushed by salty scraps,
wallowing in the doors of the wind,
your things now, in the silence,
shaking, getting settled, blinking.


This has been one of the first poems I have ever written in English, still in the 90's, it has come to my mind reading David King's "Two Poems On Borders".
I remember I had written various versions of "Outpost" before this one which I also think was published although I don't remember where.
At that time I was fascinated with the "Essentials", I later wrote also poem with this title. I mean "Essentials" in the sense of getting in touch with the bareness of things which in so much as bare and essential assume almost a sacred status.