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CvK |
Watermarks |
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V. The Spring |
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While at our feet
the river twists unravelling fibres,
swift the surface broken and pocked
with age. Reflection shattered in its
rush through mountains to the sea. On spits of sand is waiting, the waiting for
the oar splash, the groan of the man coming
in the boat and waiting. Take the coin with
the dolphin on its back! Take this my
horse! The crossing must be made. It is one stream and along its banks the
prints are forced, its meadow flats
glow with blood. Kiss! kiss the
rock and touch the wound! Up beyond the lake
where the fisher throws his nets
and waits for mere words. Sing! sing! caress and dance! The paths twine
and lead to shores dark and burning
where gathered we have waited too.
Wait the hero, wait the maid to rise
with flashing sword from
hibernation. Then share the living in attendance upon
the manna of memories turning as brown
leaves turn in the waters. The jet is clouded
iron-red, not blood, but there is a
truth here too. Catch the spindle
as it turns and blooded in the
blurring torpor of its speed to
the point where thrum and threads
are lost in the spinning. Sisyphus knows as
strolling down the slope there is
time for thought. The pavilions of
silk are pitched; the best have come
to watch the last; and it is over,
scattered, errant. One glimpse of the
cup or stone, no matter veiled, and
the centre shudders, shifts, gives
way. The best of them pierced the forest
no matter where, the paths diverge,
splinter, are lost. Ixion tied upon a
wheel waits while the wind cutting
at his mouth drives his cries and
breath back within his throat too dry
to utter pain. Unravelled, the
twine falls about the face, the
marbled eye looks out and do not see
the furling mist around the walls
beyond the river and the
flats. Woven flowers shoot against the blades
and fling scents to eddy to windows
open, filled with faces
following the flux of light coiling upon the
mist. The fisher returns, guardian
of pain. Perhaps tonight the words,
the touch and freedom to fall from
deep-drawn breath, AND wine-black waters
clear. Somewhere this: the river crossed
and all drawn in as with the
sucking in of air to the bevelling
spike here in its slow turn
behind our gaze. |