— lost the Hawk Nero which with the geese was given away and is doubtless dead for when I came back from Brussels I enquired on all hands and could hear nothing of him —
— Emily Brontë, Diary Paper, Thursday, July 30, 1845
I am done for now with devoirs, the day’s damage
of exercise books & odd vowels on the tongue,
the taxing stamp of fricatives, spilled ink & little
headspace & if I’ve also loved the rues & gardens,
lingering in music hall or gallery, the upshot of
sparrows across the shingled roofs & if I’ve missed
the gritty hearth of home — the crackling fire, pots
hissing on the range, jokes I’m pulled away by pen &
ink when there’s bread to be made, potatoes needing
peeled — then this is my reward: to swim in rabid silence,
to face the fine enigma of empty cage & pen. It’s true
I’ve long felt most at home in kingdom animalia, am struck
by plumage, bite & bate, alloys of fur & flickering
eyes, a calculating gaze. Call me smitten, otherwise
elusive, inspecting herbs while geese honk at my heels;
the merlin, Nero, on my wrist, snapping bits of bacon,
choicest cuts of beef. Chide me, restless, avoiding callers
at the door, cordials, cake & chat. I’ve sat agog
at morning toast & tea, taken in our household’s general
complaints — the mess, the noise, how my absence made
more work, how the pets ran wild or hung about.
For “lost,” read “let go,” “turned loose”; in absence
of good answers, a quiet conspiracy. Neighbors hesitate or
turn away; father’s kept busy, my sisters hold
their tongues. I’ve seen the way the heath will offer up
its savage storms — the heart must be the same:
strange, arrayed, unstrung as any wind-stripped skeleton,
hovering where horizons hang, in the early onset of frost.