‘Crear’ and Other Poems

Crear

I’ve come all the way
to Crear to think about Robert Burns
and Revolution and Mahatma Gandhi
and the Berlin Wall.

All afternoon, I’ve been watching the wind
awaken the grass, watching how every blade
rustles – a rapid trembling, as if the grass
wants to move like the wings of a hummingbird –

And as I listen to the wind, I think of Gandhiji
serving his first prison sentence
in 1908, in South Africa.  
I imagine him sitting in the prison library –
which he did. I imagine him reading
Carlyle’s biography of Robert Burns –
which he did.

That Gandhiji of lemon juice and salt
...