
Where now is the mist-ringed bell
That tolls over the wandering wave
Of the gray
River?
The moon a sliver
In the sky?
Who can tell?
Where now the branches of the nagalingam tree that sway
And brush along the cool earthen banks,
Home of shy,
Determined snails,
Before the dawn of being,
Long before the chaos
Of disrepair
Grumbled through the dark hall
Of the subterranean cave.
Where now is the brave, ascending song
Of the gold-eyed buffalo burr,
Who clung to the canyon wall,
In the fierce, railing wind,
Her petals beaming in the sun,
The one
Proclaiming victory for the day,
Where now the call
Of the giant whales
Who dive beneath
The cliff rising from
The moving waters of infinity
In the indigo
Deeps
Of joy – whales who play
With their children, ocean games
In the seaweed-flowing mystery
Of their sparkling blue sea –
Where now the curious
Goat who leaps
Among the white patches of winter snow
Along the steep
Hill of the cedarbreak?
Where now the songs
From the ranks
Of all the charming, twisted juniper trees,
Their bark that curls around like smoke,
Whose wisdom
Belongs
To the light,
The moonrise,
And the night,
Who spoke
In the ever-whistling wind,
But then were felled by a cold-axed blow
Of barbarity and lies.
All their songs are fled away
To the far, far mountains of freedom
Where they echo,
Echo,
Gone
To the long
Hills,
Where God always sings
In the wandering dawn,
Waiting for the tumult and the chaos
To have ceased
On the ending day
When flames
That have hissed high
At long last fade,
Scattered away
On the winds,
Lost in the trills
Of birdsong
And the swarm
Of the bumblebee.
Then, in a world that has glided out of the gray mist,
The heart of the wild geese
Will sound once again,
Free,
As the flight
Of the numinous
Rose-winged beauty
Of the dragonflies
Along the lilting, frog-enchanted lake,
Humming.
Hear now the wings,
The presence
Of all the beings,
Released –
Watched over by the bright,
Night-shimmering form
Of Hamsa, the swan who flies
Over the green forest
Of yore,
Reawakened by her
All-knowing essence,
Beginning anew,
In a magic country,
The land of evermore,
Eternal, true
And ever-now,
In the mystical hour of the gray dawn.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Thank you, Cindy.
How beautiful.