When, in her mystical barque,

 

The moon of many lilies

 

Glides across the dream-clad dark,

 

Her owls in her wake,

 

Their wings silent as eternity’s

 

Footsteps,

 

(Though nearby

 

Clouds of crystal geese

 

Chime on their snow-spun way)

 

Then

 

Out of the rocks

 

Misted lands

 

Will rise again

 

Now that the white-toothed one

 

Who sat on the throne

 

Has let slip his staff

 

Of silver bone

 

And his recipies

 

Of gloom

 

And dread

 

From his grime-

 

Grimmed hands

 

And has slid

 

Down into the deep

 

Depths

 

Of the smokened tomb

 

Of time.

 

Soon flocks

 

Of dawn-eyed does will

 

Drink from the blue spring

 

As before in the day

 

When the heron was the rain

 

And the lion the sun.

 

Then  on the hill

 

The coyote will laugh

 

His translucent laugh;

 

In the valley

 

The butterfly

 

Will flit

 

To the petal

 

Of the water lily

 

To shake

 

Her orange head

 

And settle

 

Into sleep,

 

Her rainbowed eyelid

 

Shut in a ring

 

Of peace

 

While the moon slips by

 

On wind-lit

 

Paths

 

Over the lake

 

Of the wide sky.

 

Written around 2002

 

Photo: Boris Ryaposov / Dreamstime.com