To become the stone,
Of schist,
The rock,
The song
Sung,
Drifting in the emeralds of awakening,
The clattering bone,
The feet wandering
Upon the sand
Of the wave lost
In the band
Of rain rent,
Long on the desolate
Sand-pipered shore…
To become the fire,
The pyre,
The blessed burning
Of the ashen dead,
From their cindered bed,
Sent into skies unknown,
Is to become
The wind against the flaming gong
To go,
And going, to be gone,
Over the moon-haunted mountain of mist
Where the flock
Of white geese
Wait, innocent,
Watching,
And waiting and watching,
They become an unbound
Eternity of snow,
Flown
Far,
Where the one who can never be found,
Hidden still in the fine gold traces
Of the ancient knowing faces
Of the gods of Kailasanathar,
Is always and evermore
Mother of the delicate
Blue tattered rose strung
On the sun-templed tree
Near the climbing windlit towers of the dawn
Of peace.
© Sharon St Joan, photo and poem, 2013