emblems of endurance

EARTH SPIRALS

The words are worn & second-hand

because they came to you

from what came before you.

Peaceful silence of that early land.

Spring meadow, showered with gemstones

glinting in the Joe-Pye weed.

Her breathing warmth, your need

to hold.  Her smile, tickling your bones.

What I wanted to say, could I put it in words

seraphic Maximus might get?

Leaning no-handed on his parapet –

a prisoner (two mourning doves his birds

of paradise, his golden fleece, his dream).

Our tacit sense of truth

sleepwalks, like gentle Ruth

into her waking world.  Like a clear stream

running over red-brown clay, where scattered

agates gleam… moss-rose earth spirals

guide us to Gateway walls –

Itasca springs of earliness.  Of all that mattered.

The throne, the chair of adamant obsidian.

Her maze of Mexican onyx.

Coatlicue’s fire-tempered bricks

of wrath & fortitude… that perihelion

of burning sun, her purifying kiln.

These emblems of endurance

frame a turtleshell dance,

absorbing pain – her sweat-salt will.

4.9.20