FLESH TO BONE

I waded into a wilderness of lakes
churning turquoise beneath an envious sun
which, wearily omniscient, began its
demise in a vise of cool wombs.
I saw lake upon lake
rimmed by mossgrown trees,                                     muscles arching seductively over cliffs,
but also over paths to block the cliffs,
and, everywhere, hints of the wasting sun
off boulders and sunken stone.
 
A new day dressed in only grays
brought a larger lake, shored by miles of
mottled sand, and, in the air, the
creeping dare of anxious winter, and,
unfit to tread the perimeter,
I recalled stillness as a despair,
at other times, a preservation,
and remembered that, often,
what we cannot accomplish
is the least of what we need.

What coursed beneath that last
did not dance or sing for me
which did not matter,
as the journey to that placid place
was to a face, eyes cool
and still as any inlet
of any sequestered sea.

But now, now: I have left, for the
vengeance of the selfsame sun,
the unforgiving glare, and in the 
absence of forest, burn bare.
How it teems in its own belly --
consumes itself daily, the cannibal sun --
and yet is the same that greens
the azure waters of that land,
and the skies of your cerulean eyes,
their pupils perfect islands of night,
twin sisters of disguise.

In this arid place, I ponder
what color does to color, person
to person, I of insatiable need -
I steep in a moss of memory
as in some virgin cemetery,
stalking the sands of
more accessible lands, where
I neither mourn nor weep,
but dream with sacred seeds.

Chameleon-eyed, I reflect
everything but turquoise,
I who have no soul, no fire,
who, drowning in devious waves,
considers your stalking the lakes,
you who rows the boat by day
who weaves the winds by day
blesses the birds by day --
who churns alone, sings alone,
lies alone -- a black black stone,
or hematite, as tethered
to turquoise ponds
as flesh is to its bone.

Julie K. Shavin 11 09