The light of butterflies

 

 

 

 

Listen, and hear

 

Within the moon the silent flight

 

Of white

 

Crane

 

Feathers,

 

While stars ring like bells in a sky of snow.

 

Did you know

 

That the moon is hollow

 

And it chimes?

 

Now, past clouds of bitter rain,

 

Of weathers

 

Sullen in the jagged wind,

 

At a sharp bend in the long road,

 

Shines the light of butterfilies beyond the shards of the dark,

 

The spark

 

Of grace, as yet unimagined,

 

A hand of tree bark

 

Offers peace, abhaya mudra: “Fear

 

Not,” a message,

 

Seek and ye

 

Shall find

 

All truth

 

Within the call

 

Of the star, cloaked in a misted shawl.

 

Soon, between the bones of yesteryear

 

Rise the rushing waters to the ridge

 

Of ending times.

 

There at the top of the narrow stair

 

Opens the rock-enchanted desert that will echo eternity,

 

Shimmering stones,

 

Who

 

Sing that the shadow

 

Has gone, though it is not that the shadow

 

Has gone, but just that the sun is real and the shadow not, after all,

 

And so

 

The holy one, unknown, will walk again on the straight path,

 

Will hold the innocent deer high in his hand

 

(In the land

 

Of the gold dragon who gnashes

 

Her emerald jaw,

 

Extending her five-toed

 

Paw)

 

There the brave one walks, placing the sun anew,

 

Engulfing the burning cities of the mind,

 

And – casting death at last behind,

 

Cleanses the earth of ashes.

 

 

Poem: © Sharon St Joan, 2017

Photo: © Dbpetersen | Dreamstime