a name for that nameless absence we seek to fill

If I could
anchor myself
here
and go down
deeper and deeper
in this one
place

a time would
come, perhaps
when I could
penetrate
even this unyielding
indifferent earth,
find here
what remains
unknown:

a name
for that nameless
absence
we seek to fill

an end
or point
to our own long
absence
from home.

[Gary Holthaus, 'What It Comes Down To', from Goose Hill Broadsides 1997 
intended to have been posted 18 April 2015]