Leonie Rowland
Almost thirty years of knowing where you are, but only now
realising: incense burning on a windowsill next to black
leaves untidied ashes red string in small piles that used to be
worn around your wrist as blessings. It’s raining properly
and there are droplets on the glass and some of them come
inside and oh you realise: you are in a clumsy severe imminent
arrangement of a god that chose smoke over clarity, the heavy wail
of night and the small light of candles, a hereness that is so fallen
and intense with its own existence that the holiness becomes
undeniable, the city outside undeniable. Tiny anchored sparks
back to another place, and the joy of it makes you sure
that a long long time ago you chose to come here
only to feel grief