Becoming Anne Bradstreet

It happens again
As soon as I take down her book and open it.
 
I turn the page.
My skies rise higher and hang younger stars.
 
The ship's rail freezes.
Mare Hibernicum leads to Anne Bradstreet's coast.
 
A blackbird leaves her pine trees
And lands in my spruce trees.
 
I open my door on a Dublin street.
Her child/her words are staring up at me:
 
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find.
 
We say home truths
Because her words can be at home anywhere—
 
At the source, at the end and whenever
The book lies open and I am again
 
An Irish poet watching an English woman
Become an American poet.