(Marshlight)

fast, fast
here amid the root-maze
amid the trickling dripping flood
amid the tangling treacherous water-grass

here he is lost in the night.
there are no stars.
there is no moon.
dark swallows him entire.
fast, fast. slow, slow.

sinking.

on the surface of the still black water:
a faint reflection
distant
serene:

marshlight.

(Sour Fruit)

A row of round fruits on a vine,

red berries in profusion, straining against their skins.
Some have burst.
Juice stains the leaves brown-black.


Tighter to the vine,
smaller, hanging higher,
this fruit is mottled green.

It is firm to the tooth. It resists being plucked.
It bursts between the teeth, a tang and sting.

Sour fruit.

(Winterbreath)

cold
cold
the world is cold
the world is spiderwebs of white
stiffening the grass, glazing the water's edge

from warm stifling curl
(too tight now, out, out
need OUT)
to chill and brightness

the sky sears clear blue
the air burns cold in the mouth, into the lungs
when it returns
(out, need out)
it feathers and coils
visible until it's gone
white like the world

winterbreath.

(Bones-Underwater)

Slow rise through sleep to dream. Awareness. Dreaming? Yes. How strange.

Looking up through clear cold water, the sky wrinkling and distorting with the ripples skating over the surface. A waterbug passes, skating on the thin liminal divide between drowning and breathing. Drowning. No, no, I am breathing --

-- and like that, breathing, gasping, looking from above, now. At the edge of the pool. A clear lens, deceptively shallow. Grass-shadows paint black across the wind-wrinkled water. Past the surface, below, below --

-- half-buried in the weed, in the black mud, in the algae, it is barely visible, a glint of ivory. The socket of an empty eye stares blind up at the surface. Around it, behind it, obscured and revealed by the sway of the weed, there are --

-- bones underwater.

(Wasp's-nest)

A hum, a brizz, a buzz
the air shakes, the ground trembles,
ever so slight, a movement under the hooves
shuddering up through the soft parts in the center.

He is new, he is old,
he is ancient, he is not born at all.

Deep in the dark of the comb,
in the paper-walled cells,
life hums all around. He will be
born to that rasp,
that grating song.

Walks-Underneath whispers in the layers,
chuckles in the combs,
bites the life from the unwary,

here in the sharpness of the sting, inside the

wasp's-nest.

(Egg)

the light glows through it, and within, a heartbeat

(Thunder Far Away)

Night-dark, the lake patterned by rain; and far away, the thunder.

(Midwinter Sky)

Ice-crackle thin on shallow pools, hard mud under hooves;
this is the season of ice, the season of austerity,
in which reeds sleep and trees stand guard
under an arch of brilliant blue
midwinter sky.

(A Purple Journey)

Once upon a time and a very good time it was, said a purple voice.

Everywhere there was to walk, he walked and danced and jumped; everything there was to see, he saw with smiling eyes. He dreamed in dreaming, sang to the moths, spoke to the trees, leaped along the rainbows, and when the dreaming giants laughed, he laughed too, laughed for joy. There was joy in making and joy in doing, joy in all of life and joy in dreaming, and all of it, all of it to share.

On the day the earth shook and cracked, the day the ravens went away and all who walked and danced and made and shared stood under the firefly sky and sang, he sang too, sang as the giants slipped awake and a purple dusk flickered in his eyes. Every love story, said a laughing voice, is a ghost story. He smiled and closed his eyes to listen; he swam in endless gentle purple; he listens to the stories the familiar voice tells, and is comforted. Silence is love just as your raspy voice is a bird.

Do you miss home? You can go back there, but you can never really go back there, says the voice, and he sighs, sighs in purple, turns away, turns elsewhere. He is confined now, wrapped tight in something, but soon, soon there will be new places to walk, new songs to sing, new voices to hear.

New dreams to dream. Dreams in purple and in all the colors that are, in red and gold, in sun and water and sky.

He is ready. He is ready.

HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME, sings the voice, and he slips from one dream towards another. He is ready.

HURRY UP PLEASE
IT'S TIME

(Bumbling)

A brizz, a buzz, a hum,
summer-golden day,
the Sun and heat the sum
of careless while-away

the bumbling of bees
across the flowered field,
bringing through the trees
their honey-golden yield.

(A Map Of The Heart)

Here in the soft dark,
here in the center of everything,
here where the paths the heartbeat travels cross,
here is where you are,
here the numinous you;

the breathing silence,
the knowing sideways look at nobody,
the closed eye and the open eye,
the breath that is not quite laughter;

here is who you are and what,
the ecstatic celebration of all you are,
an abstract definition made flesh:

a map of the heart.

(Love-in-Idleness)

White petals from the center sweetly grew,
each one arranged in purity like snow,
until the thorn of love chance overflew
and struck the little flower, brought it low.
An aching love began within its heart
and bled deep violet over its fair face,
a love begun by subtle, silent art
to leave a mark forever in its place.
Why then should two who love be kept away?
A feeling, grown like blossoms in the grass,
may bloom and wilt, or might forever stay,
still full and bright as all the seasons pass.
Love-in-idleness watches love's sweet ways,
as lovers walk beside its silent gaze.

(Ring of Ripples)

Your nose touches the water
and ripples spread in rings,
ruffling the surface
and then fading away.

In reply, they drift up from below,
touching the air
with their hungry mouths,
searching, searching.

Here where the water touches the air,
from two sides two different creatures
can touch, briefly,
before their ways part once more.

(Singing Wind)

Here is the narrow way forward,
here is the way you must go,
don't speak, just breathe,
don't run, step soft. Listen.
The walls of stone rise twisting
and between them slides the singing wind,
wordless, ecstatic,
calling you home.

(A Dream of Rain)

At first there are no dreams at all.
He sleeps, warm and secure, bounded firm and soft
by the limits of the world, the walls that have always existed and always will
(always will).
It comes then, soft and slow and sure.
A quiet patter, a rhythm, no rhythm at all. Slow, scattered,
quickening, steady. A sound and feeling.
He hears it in the depths of his sleep, hears it,
will always hear it no matter how long he lives,
asleep, awake,
a dream of rain.