Sit now, close your eyes in prayer
Now, beat back to the forest
Through cinnamon dust and
Summer's suffocating air
Pounding heart
He is here now
See him beating
See him whirling
Your once boy body
Nostrils scorched in peppered air
Red earth prying between white toes
Which jump excited
At the burr's prick and
Rushing now, red footed
Rush, rush, rushing now
His fingers whip at bark
Taught flanks lashed by fern
Sweat beads and sweetens
Cut and sting, this roughened
Breath and body sing
Eyeless and intoxicated
Now circling, now slowing
Toes trace a story from the dirt
Turning in a trance
He dances a circle and falls
Panting, in dimming light
In the forest's heart
Leaves patter beyond closed lids
No thought intrudes here
In the silence of the woods