I saw through dripping slender trees whose hanging tresses
seemed but only more of mist, darkened, through
the wet and slender pointed leaves pointed
toward the dark wet earth, through their edges
and their curtain parting I perceived the platform.
I know not what it had been; now it seemed a platform
for the women.
Perhaps
it had been a forum, a stage, the broad floor of shrine
or chapel for the stone was worn and
pitted now from baring to the pitiless elements, storm,
wind, sun, pitiless all but
the women seemed not to care and the broken
pillars yet rose up along the verges more than twice as tall as they.
Gray. The platform, the
pillars darkened at their shattered cornices by
moss, cracked their lengths, stained their bases by roots
of vines which coiled them in sly embrace. Gray
were the broad and shallow steps, the 6 cracked steps
which opened the platform to any who
sought what?
What
had it to offer?
It
may be its purpose now was not to offer anything
at all.
The
women seemed not to care.
They
sought what was significant, compelling,
in each other's eyes and words, in
voices and cast of eye. How light of the gray
day glinted focused there. It was more than
fire to gather round, it drew far more than
fire might.
It
did not lessen my ignorance nor illumine a
path away from it.