Blessings

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