I
know you as well hear the refrain
of
maple limbs stretched beyond resolve,
in
an old forest with bonfires in its lungs—
a
madrigal cracking of branch and bone,
where
we waded time savagely,
filled
with music at solstice, and at equinox
listening
for a remnant of past footsteps
when
we used to roam delicious and wild.
We
soaked in sunlight before wisdom,
summoning
memory of elk, their majestic crowns,
calling
fountains of forest song
as
we made wine amid a reckoning of eyes.
The
rock gardens cut our skin, bled our bodies
into
offerings full of flowers, hidden desires,
before
a denouement of hands gripping steel
forged
in our quiet moments.
Remember
that woodland builder,
a
terrestrial architect, deliberate in his ways,
an
understudy of the river, but mute of the sky.
He
kept our faces moving till twilight;
you
burned the black roses,
while
I tasted honey between rises,
lost
in constellations and elations, searching
for
sentients of the bright.
We
forgot our destination was somewhere else,
far
beyond borders where we laid,
as
season shifts blended dreamscapes with salt
and
smoke rising from winter fire to sparkled seas;
and
when our legs gave to the day’s burn,
we
could only melt solemnly in the night—
two
celestial architects,
sketching
stars and new worlds as we slept.
