Austin McCarron

The Indispensible Guide to Unearthly Practices 
 

After a universe of time,
spring is a shock to my eyes:
the promise
of light in a chimney of air.

On hills or near gardens, baby
lambs offer kisses of new blood.
Beautiful animals glide on
colours and draw blinds of sound.

There is a gift of water, like breath
in open veins,
but leaves of skin gather like food
of inconsolable factories
around plants and trees and lawns.

Looking ahead I throw away the
blanket of its extraordinary aim but
it is not higher within, where graves
fester like flies around sweating pits.

The sun of fire returns a blaze but its
inner light is forked. In spiritual
green the doctors of spent deliveries
appear in shining
boots to unravel traces of the dead.
Roots of demonic earth I fail to revive.
I see into the mirror of its eyes and find
nothing but still
like worms in hair its silence is a word.