AEAEA
Recurring Dream Island

July 2005
 
 

6 July 2005
 

A friend of mine was hit and killed at the crossroads just beyond my window last night.
We all knew her as Tris.  It turns out this was derived from the name she chose for herself--Tristesse.
 

The Working of Tristesse
 

All everyone no one meets—shudder descending—
one slow tristesse Working, one steep drop of blood
on a terror-flown errand—once-heaviness tenders
a night-arc of yearning high-drifted to flood
the dry window where stillness lies eerily dreaming
itself into series’ of meetings pale day—
there to feel and be seen to lie soft amid keening
designs under no Moon at all’s baleful sway
while a menstruous tide, purple-foamed and salt-flowered,
up-riddles a thousand invisible cracks—
there:  the will-have-been-wept moaning wrenching of power:
high-borne you are now, trailing feather-bone tracks.

This is a beginning.  There will be more.
 

***
 
 

7 July 2005
 

All day at work I kept smelling sandalwood, vivid and strong, from no apparent source.
 

Sandal Essence
 

Fragrant you are, with a high sandal essence
so volatile—leaked one, whose bright gifts are flown
through a ache in a sky by which shaken-leaf blessings
acquire and deliver a death-scented zone
and are gone like a stream through a crack in a mirror,
a spring that will always desire and be borne—
you—a place of grave everywhere-seeing and hearing,
a breathing-requited new way to unmourn
new-leaf moments through brightening series of echoes.
There—we are here—in the hall of the sky
where a rapt vatic Moon richly rises and beckons,
I mean you to breathe.  Magic-many’s the sigh.
 

***
 

8 July 2005
 

Be You Broken
 

The shade of love’s low leafy branch—the cast shadow—
the wand-legged dancer you were and will be—
most haunted and beautiful hanging enchanter,
the ghost of the clinging-together I see
when I reach to the Moon for its new-crescent answer—
so much magic meets me, such singing-dream lift—
and two matches’ together-struck fire-eyed glancing—
 flare-sooth spoken tenderly risen to shift
into silver-drenched paired lantern voices—oh mansion
though which holy incense inbreathes outer flight,
you shade are a joy-resourced air.  Music stands in
your way by design.  Be you broken aright.
 

***
 

9 July 2005
 

The Shroudless Morning Star
 

Your morning will meet you—dream-sodden, still sleepy,
replete with the thousand and one of love’s lies—
but will also reveal at the core of its weeping
the pure profound formal demeanor that sighs
behind splayless close parallel fingers its mirror-
globe message:  How central you are to its state
of as-yet unimagined air-splendor.  The nearer
you lean to its whisper, the nearer the fate
it has never concealed altogether will rise to
the surface, such you-magic sung quite out loud:
A star on the far silver line of the sky you
are learning—as words weave love’s dreamless unshroud.
 

***
 

10 July 2005
 

The Moon Everywhere
 

The follow-me long fading plume of smoke water
sways under, all cool mirror-ripples—that trail
rests upon the dream-face of a riser who’s brought a
strange secret to flit through the luminous pale
midnight sky’s leaking lantern the while its scent marries
the heavy wet breeze the steep Moon reaches through.
Smooth eyelids are rendered entirely transparent.
Coming to meet you—here—somebody true
to a dimly remembered sleep-melody rushes
along a soft feather-print scent in sweet air.
Recalled all at once to its words through the hush of
sheer breathlessness, mirror song’s Moon everywhere.
 

***
 

11 July 2005
 

Mother of Rivers
 

Mother of rivers of tarnish-black ashes,
cold mirror of weariness-magic, sing low
to the source of all fallen-star stillness.  The sash of
my window is wet; will an eerie wind blow
the old curtains aside, and a new Moon obsess me?
I lie, fallen open, all stains everywhere
reawakened, made use of by yearning, a restless-
grown thousand-year field waving seedheads stripped bare
of their color-drenched petals, nigh-groaning with fertile
emergency:  Woe, we have quickened too soon.
I hear you in spite of the depth of wild worship
you mean.  Though uneasy, I yield to your croon.
 

***
 

12 July 2005
 

We never forget that sang, in French, means blood.
 

She Sang the New Moon
 

She woke down the pulse of a slow fading river
that carried her nearer the mirror-Moon face
of a sky’s open wound.  She breathed in, and the giver
of graces whose incense is air to this place
lent long deep-sighted eyes to the shiver-run starting
to widen her.  No more a frail human spine;
she was being upheld by leaf-sighs that untarnished
her heart to reflect the complete round design
the pure core of its beauty had sung morning, midnight,
forever.  The bleeding behind the Moon’s eyes
cured the words to her story.  They sang, heavy-lidded
with tears of true love among old woe grown wise.
 

***
 

13 July 2005
 

The Morning Heart
 

The morn that lies greeting new raptures of meaning—
close-coiled in a heap at the base of the fair
silent dream of nigh-formlessness, dappled with sweetness,
its voice a cool breeze among leaflets so rare,
their deep-rooted astonishment beckons yet seldom
if ever quite seems to arise, flower-full—
all the while it keeps beating, a longing retelling
that feels its way forward toward the strong pull
of its heaven-high source.  Through the rivering mirror
that loves you so well—how it brims your heart’s eyes—
that wide-opening orb will have lived you the tears of
the ocean YOU ARE beyond these mortal skies.
 

***
 

14 July 2005
 

Starlight of Home
 

Oh haunter, unspoken unknown, mighty blessing
as yet word-unmeasured, come rest where we lie
who are starting to murmur dawn’s memory-essence
amid mirror-tears and a last low good-bye
as the faces that mirror reflects cease their shining
apart from each other and move to embrace
the sole wetness they share, the bloodstream of love’s dying-
eyed smile on the way to a fey-lighted place
that was nearly allied to lone nowhere when mortal
remains laid their curse on dry Earth and hove hard.
When you open as—oh, but you have—silent portal,
a grave world will speak that is wild-faery-starred.
 

***
 

15 July 2005
 

The Unstemmed Leaf
 

I will have surrendered soon, shuddering heartbeat.
Companion in solace, come find me—oh, now.
Come, shining you were when we lay under starlight,
each silver-lit globe of pearl sweat on your brow
a bright mirror so clear, woken wild green reflections
moved leaf after leaf, underlayers of live
singing-hearing, to quicken the silence that met us
while love sighed its greeting.  Come pale one, midwive
the high dawning of mysteries mercy’s own secret
heart beats to reveal—unreflected, direct.
The touch of pure spirit—the skin of its leaking
deep longing—meet mine.  Our real blood streams unchecked.
 

***
 

17 July 2005
 

The Found-Lost Tear
 

The will of the wand—silver-leafed, triple-twisted
of pliant green stems in rain-dancing sweet air—
softly shows me the thrill of deep wisdom that lists in
the wind filled with silence by grace of nowhere
I have ever begun to recall—till this moment.
The glade of tall trees’ stillness-opened clear light
stands to meet me, all motionless breath overflowing
with eyes that awaken my own ancient sight
as they rise with an echoing breeze in which music
sets dancing a faraway pulsebeat drawn near.
Oh meet me, you luminous weeper whose hugeness
of magic was sparked by one found full-Moon tear.
 

***
 

18 July 2005
 

The Unknown Hand
 

Love’s tear-swollen dream’s river-meeting of mortal
reminders is why I am here, wide-awake
at the heart of the star I am shone of, its portal
thrown open.  Hold hands with my being and take
as your own its huge will, ever silver, grown golden
by sheer grace of evening, slow-Moon-lit and kind.
Within it reposes the luminous soul of
the both of us.  Know you the wand-leaves entwined
on your staff and my bodice—we two are one essence
within their green magic—yet three are the leaves
softly plaited alive there.  Among the tree-tresses
they spring from—within us—what other hand weaves?
 

***
 

19 July 2005
 

The River-Moon’s Bloom
 

Three leaves, slow-uncurling, their tender-voiced message
light-leaking green blood on my fingertips, spill
deeper secrets than any the love-yearning nests of
night-spirits coiled up me like mare-murmurs fill
overbrimming with—fraught to the lips with sweet darkness,
its work of high truthfulness still yet alive—
while between us—shy twins who have always been partners
in silence—dear mystery!  Flaring there thrives
huge tomorrows’ immense crimson beauty in feathers
and petals, a vastness of soul in repose
at its center so richly imagined, so weathered
of music, we must—bloom one river-Moon-rose.

.

**