Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Where Shadows Speak (poem)
Where Shadows Speak
To live like a mole,
you must go underground,
feel your way
along the velvet passages,
only come up to wash your face
in sun.
When raven flies,
he sees everything below—
all the tumbling mountain leaves
falling to the cold ground,
the intricate snow
sculpting the earth
into strange shapes,
dragons and stars.
In the cities,
there is frenzy.
In the pastures,
things dying quietly
or being reborn
in green.
Some are caught
between chaos
and stillness,
pulled like loose sails,
don't know which way to turn.
Others hone in,
fix their sights on one thing,
become its
texture and form,
the feel of its chiseled surfaces.
Still others are carried to sea
by the riptide in the blood,
out to the deep waters
where the shadows speak to them
of love and fury,
dying for passion,
of never being stranded,
of always going deeper.
Dorothy Walters
October 21, 2008
(Inspired by Arthur Sze’s poem “Fauve”)
To live like a mole,
you must go underground,
feel your way
along the velvet passages,
only come up to wash your face
in sun.
When raven flies,
he sees everything below—
all the tumbling mountain leaves
falling to the cold ground,
the intricate snow
sculpting the earth
into strange shapes,
dragons and stars.
In the cities,
there is frenzy.
In the pastures,
things dying quietly
or being reborn
in green.
Some are caught
between chaos
and stillness,
pulled like loose sails,
don't know which way to turn.
Others hone in,
fix their sights on one thing,
become its
texture and form,
the feel of its chiseled surfaces.
Still others are carried to sea
by the riptide in the blood,
out to the deep waters
where the shadows speak to them
of love and fury,
dying for passion,
of never being stranded,
of always going deeper.
Dorothy Walters
October 21, 2008
(Inspired by Arthur Sze’s poem “Fauve”)
(image from Wikipedia)
