my mind wraps tightly around an idea,
but like a rag being rung and twisted unto itself
loses the very water it tries so desperately to hug,
my thoughts seep through the cracks of my word's grasps

Sea asks
- why are we here?
    
                  Sky, she always answers
                  - because the tree called to us
                    he called to us for life and a home

endless Sea asks
- does he not feel enveloped?
  
                 and Sky, she always answers
                 - my darling:

         A tree amidst a forest can know no bounds
         as everywhere around him
         there is only more of him
        
         he is one with himself and his earth.

Sky, her
one eye cratered white
the face of the moon
the other blazing gold
the reflection of the sun

she reaches down to touch the Sea

                      she whispers:
                      Time is our mother,
                      she sends us forward with hope

and clutching his hands,
they dance around the tree
wondering the wonders of the world
into existence under the stars.

the children
      they dance with their death carelessly,
      take it by the hand to the river
       and let it swim free

the men and women
      they grapple with their death angrily,
      duel with it in a meadow
      and wrestle it into a pocket they can't see

the white-haired wisened
      they smile with their death peacefully
      walk as old friends
      down the autumn road to the sea.

what does she do with her hands?
they lie in her lap, and her tapestry falls to the floor
  
when the woven basket that carried food to the table
breaks under the weight of time,
my daughter will starve

what does she do with her hands?
they lie in her lap, and her tapestry falls to the floor

when the clay that sculpted gods
is dried and cracking and lacking water,
my son too will die of thirst

what does she do with her hands?
they lie in her lap, and her tapestry falls to the floor

when the leaves that adorned the pillows of our bed
burn up in the fire of technology's rumbling belly
there will be no desire to touch the world

and what should she do with her hands?
she must pick them up from her lap
and heal the earth.

I linger to dream
if only to touch you 'fore I wake
  
         that in the shadow of a sheet
         wisping night into day


    I might spy your face,
    blurred by its own echo
        and reflected to me in sleep

she sits in front of this glass echo
feeling perverse by its reverse
as she traces the line of silver tears
on this stranger's face

she wonders whether years of stillness
will yield sings of aging
as she wastes away watching
for a better person to take her place