Before and again

Canyon de Chelly, the rim above Spider Rock

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

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