Take the narrow road
to the deep North,
where Greenlanders guard
a magic mountain
in a thousand acres
of their lost world.
Dark places hide here,
memories
where things fall apart.
Never forget: you
are the outsider.
Set aside any great
expectations
of walking home
a hero, as if
Homer’s Odyssey
were some inherent vice
or true vocation
mapped out
like an alchemist’s spell
you must follow.
You are leaving
human traces
paring down
your earthly possessions
in pursuit of
all the powerful,
invisible things.
In the heart of darkness
you will find your awakening
and the red shift of dawn
will lift birdsong,
sudden and unexpected,
through the sky’s
painted veil.

Source text: A selection of titles from the author’s bookshelf.

Anne Lawrence Bradshaw graduated in English Literature in 2013, returning to study after a twenty year hiatus. Her work has been recently published in Orbis, Acumen and Artemis (UK literary magazines) and several ezines. She is Writer Liaison at Ember (emberjournal.org/) and lives in Northumbria with one husband and 2.4 children. Occasional tweets emerge from @shrewdbanana but she’s usually too busy watching the grass grow.