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
