~

After the dark of the forest the wind is home. 
A voice, carried, out of the earth 
or worn away to expose a solitary stone. 
A bird I hear but cannot see.

Beads of water hang from brambles. Logics 
and permutations of carbon, a pure mere beginning. 
The strong wind that knows the sails.

One touch of the hand means more than any 
of my intentions. There is a tear that is real 
in our limitation and the wounding of light 
from a dumb freedom real as well as unfolding 
days. Vibrations in the air.

New storehouses bloom, steam from the compost 
into the seen world passes away. The ground 
thaws for an afternoon. A banquet. Esau's 
red soup of republic, the massive cognitive 
social river of forgetfulness.

Have I gone on too much about the burning of a fire? 
But it is not by the red of the fire I am struck 
dumb, but the blue. Is that the sound of 
new Sumac flaming in winter? Entirely consume the tree! 
That we might have a place to live in the gray ashes 
left behind.

But these are only colors, absences 
resounding in the stream. It is a stream we can hear 
but can not see. The year explodes like horse chestnuts, 
culminations of memory, plain as movement of the body 
obscure as swallowed into the quiet heat of living

and there is a bell resounding.

[Drew Gardner - from The Meditations]

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