In the black marble lake
Jade fishes flit through reeds of sunbeams.
The wing of the duck, the wave of her wake
Are one with the stillness, in pure streams—
Like truth glimpsed through dream-windows.
Near glass wands, a glimmering drake
Shines forth the darkness of rainbows
Between perception’s seams.
And at dawn, when the earth-shadows shake,
The wild pipes of the ducks chime
Song-winged ships that break
Free and climb beyond time.
Written around 1988
Painting by Carl Friedrich Deiker around 1875. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons.