On Seeing Julia's Work in Progress

ON SEEING JULIA'S WORK IN PROGRESS

Up on Beers Road the artist woke up one
morning rising from bunched and wrinkled
dreams and walked out before someone
she thought she knew too well could catch up

this is how she found the light behind
the ordinary the way shadows tell time
what to do as they move over the ground
we see her crouching here hand reaching

touching the surface of things so
many things the plane of passing glances
offers to the trained eye her repetoire
flickering busily we could say interacting

that is to say her inner world brisk
against the outer world trees leaves
bark stones pebbles dust branches
alive and dead some semblance of order

but little recognizably formally human
we could say that's not what she's about
and color her language tempting to say
solitary tongue with whom can she dialogue

when it comes to color? she stands here
and looks about her. Huntress.

THIS TIME

"When you get up in the morning, smooth out the shape of your body from the bed."

Thank you Pythagoras for your hypotenuse of the dream
the triangulation of mind body spirit in a field of 300 count Egyptian cotton.

Even the sunrise holds the shadows in high esteem
saying words such as new and day and break.

Like the hollow forms in the ash of Vesuvius
the puzzles we leave behind are empty.

Meanwhile on the edge of the street we stand
marveling at the migration of geese
while scholars sift through the dust.

Last night I dreamed of snow
vast stretches of cold white perfection
mysteriously balanced sculpted into
frozen dances or lovers' entanglements
but getting close I touch hard plastic forms beneath
and beneath that trickery
the smell of the past rankled enough to wake me up

and send me shuffling through the dark
reaching for door frames fingertips on walls
positioning myself over that hard white opening
porcelain pure functional and implacably sterile
that frightened me so much as a child.

I guess I'm older.
Something's changed I know.

Give me the song of one Winter visitor on a telephone wire
and I'll be good.

Even one of those slow whorled shells emerging emerging
their antennae thrusting in the rains
will do.

All I ask. All I ask is new. This time.

CRYSTALS AND WATER

CRYSTALS AND WATER

How is it possible, this breaking open? Finding
perfect facets clustered, teasing us with mystery.

And think of this, the first vibration upon which
everything is built, recorded here, frozen.

The flood, the great battle on the plains
and the greatest love story, all here. The ark,

the spear, the kiss that changed the world,
all broken up for the light of right now. Listen.

You can hear the river meeting the surface
far below like thunder, like the breath of a dragon

that never ends. Here. Step here, into the cave
behind that curtain. Here, it’s safe.

You cannot be found. Here you can whisper
the question you’ve been longing to ask, and

when you’re ready—there’s no turning back—
follow the answer over the cliff.