from "Letters to Elena" (Grassblade Light, ch. 2). sort of an orphic credo.

         12


  
         A child playing in muddy Paradise.
 Lost in the mudpies there between her legs.
 Where a word is a profile, and a dog's
 cocked ear is the letter J, sideways –

  
         or upside-down.  Your birthday
 every day, under the clean azure U:
 no harm shall befall you,
 says the fortune cookie

  
         oracle.  In the shadow of a little tree
 it all comes back to me – you too.
 This balm, this grief, these nettles,
 this rue – light lives and heavy

  
         dyings – as though we were all coracles
 of hide and willow branches, all sails,
 all canvas – from earliest first
 bells, launched – infant disciples

  
         summoned to swim toward the shy
 vortex of the shadiest voice.
 To carry the freight of despairs
 toward... how can I say it?

  
         One almond eye.  Noah's canoe –
 lashed forever to your own eyelashes
 in the morning mirror.  Hush.
 A curving ellipse will show

  
         how the crown of child's play becomes you.
 Wear it (your diadem) in truth –
 while buried root and blossom both
 from the muddy earth are borne anew.


       
                                  1.30.99