Suite: Night/Dance in the Horizon

III. The River Coursing the Moon

the Beloved awoke to the moonrise,
    surprised at the sound of its awkward smile--
within it dreams the weeping of women,
    washed in torrents through echoing caverns
where bats awaken and snatch keys away
    from a shy and blank and empty piano
standing between the moon and the river

    the Beloved awoke, surprised to hear
the sounds of another moonrise drain yet another
    current of weeping through her caverns;
they interrupt the braiding of pebbles into her hair
    to mark the seepage of time through these caves
as she awaits the return of her Bridegroom--
    her head grows heavy as the years pass,
the currents of moonbeams slow to a trickle
    around her aging stance, and the bats
no longer return to collect the remnants
    of a piano sinking softly to the river's floor

she, too, will disappear into the damp ground
    beneath the weight of silence and sadness
and stillness, her grave marked only by pebbles
    dropped like rain from the clouds about her head,
pebbles washed and smoothed by years of clouds,
    pebbles smoothed into a piecemeal bolder
floating above her sunken head
                                              from afar,
    the forest mistakes her sorrow for the moon,
entranced by the way the light wades by her feet:
    to the forest, she has become a cavern herself,
pulling the moon and the river into one
    raging song of sadness, coursing her bowels
as though she were an empty piano carcass

    wailing, she wraps herself in a shroud
and stands by her torrenting currents, gazing
    heavily at this moon, a stony dirge in her eyes

she stands there nightly, crazed by her own song

    the roes of the forest nudge her softly,
the red curtains of night coat her chilled shoulders
    but she does not move, she dances her stillness
against the river's edge

*     *     *

*     *     *

how i have dreamed of the mouth of the river
    appearing fountain-like as the vessel of song;
the roes of the forest would gather by at night
    and taste the vibrant runs; but there is
no forest, only fields of white

      II. Summonings

      IV. Whirlwind in My Ear

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