I reckon it was the girl,
not more than fourteen. Those eyes.
Something made him stop his talk,
hoist down the lantern and mutter out with them.
And that was one sour night—
dust and wind, things banging;
folk still wandering the town like ghosts
and hammering the doors.
Our place was loud with coins and drink,
and this was long past midnight.
It wasn’t him that came back somehow,
that’s all I’ll say—I can’t explain.
It was as though he’d seen something,
as though his eyes were somewhere else.
The first spear of light next day and he was out
with that fresh pail of milk—
and he would not say where he was going.
Kenneth Steven is a Scottish writer, poet, and retreat leader whose work is steeped in Celtic Christianity and the spirituality of Iona.
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