An exercise in longing
An exercise in longing
Kate Millar
Through longing He extends the soul, by extending He makes room in it… So let us long, because we are to be filled…That is our life, to be exercised by longing. — Saint Augustine
I cried once into my soup, thinking
of the Jerusalem cowslip leaves,
pale blotches in the green, a teardrop
trail of some planting god––was that so?
(Groan at these my infantile words, always
coming out more surface than I want
I want for nothing. My steps don’t make
these moors materialize. My gaze doesn’t create
the sunset remnant, filament, fine gold string,
a strand of hair placed on the moorland crest.
((By someone? I ask for more than this
sight: imprints left in snow gathering dirt
Don’t give me the whole truth,
I am dust, deaf to the canticle sounds
on the wind. This impervious heart,
the dark churned muck in January
formed below the iron gate of Inverleith park.
(((What do I do with all this wanting?
The droplets, they are soundless as they fall
I once drove in the fog at night,
car headlights casting cataracts across
the road. I felt I could have stopped the engine
and the darkness would erase me peacefully.
((((A ritual attempt: I light a match and hold it
to my face. Fire, as old as doubt, old as searching
Don’t give me the sea for my thirst,
I search the dark, in bed, thinking
of the rocks forming in my trapezius,
the boundaryless black erasing my childhood
bedroom walls, my post-it note prayers.
(((((Greedy for revelation––maybe someone sees
that in me. That it is my detriment
I like to think that Abraham felt this once
when he stood on empty ground, thinking
of Isaac and that voice he thought he heard
of sacrifice, south winds sounding the same as north.
((((((Did Abraham feel this when he remembered walking
with God beneath the lapis lazuli sky, stars like scattered silt?
don’t give me the sky when I ask for light.
Kate Millar
Writer & Poet
Kate is a 22-year-old poet from Edinburgh, Scotland. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at The New School in New York City. She was the Principal’s Scholar and Lawson Memorial Prize winner at The University of St Andrews for her studies in English literature. Her writing has appeared in A New Ulster and Lucent Dreaming.
Photography by Sylvia Bartyzel