Do you hear
The standing stone that sings
Again, as it did in the shining days
Before time eclipsed the starstrands
Of eternity?
Closed now the crypts of concrete flowers
Papered
With the dead photos
Of gray kings
Winding up their own
Long, white-wintered
Year.
But out through the windows
Past the gates
Lie far, fair lands
Of bright bells
Which ring,
Triumphant always
As the sunlight and the shadows
Fall
Along the hawthorne tree
There the mist encircles the hills
Where the great-pawed panther dwells
And gaily plays
Gathering spells
Amid the wildrose bowers,
While red-winged blackbirds call
Forth anew those long-lost
Powers
The angels of ancient hours
And goldfinches fly, exultant, like petals tossed
And blown
On waves of rainshowers,
And, out there
The king of appleblossoms waits
For the day of spring
Holding moonbeams in his hands.
Written around 1990.
Photo: Sharon St Joan