Once

 

There's no grit in the wind anymore;
I never need to close my eyes.
The deluge of soil and blood spill as one
and there's the invitation for a God
in every pass of the silver-geist moon.

I saw her last night, down at the river
with her feet uprooted and dangling
in the water. The wonder
of a dead embryo fused with a rose seed.
I called her Constance.

I carve the creatures I know in the biggest tree
in the center of this huge forest
then as the moon traces the bark,
hooves gallop, crickets chatter and lizards climb
out from the dark thicket.

I lost myself in the glory of the forest.
Now my skin is loose and the sky calls me home.
I carve a young man in the trunk
before I walk back through old suns.
The last carving any place will know.