DAWN CHORUS AND MOMENTS OF FROST
As if this feather, slow-turning, falls,
One breath of ice, branching blades
Arcing ghosts of fern, arced ghost of forests.
Pinioned cold, eager, aware, edge fractured.
Fingertips feeling for pattern, the familiar
Stretched pale, translucent.
As the scattered, sprinkled pierce of sound,
Woven between moonlit pale dawn wind,
Tumbling, cascades and choirs,
A flurry of beak and breast-soft down.
As all life joined up by song,
No less, no more meaning than this.
Small hearts full and pouring,
The vessel, vehicle, of the world.
No more and no less than this:
The opening of small mouths,
The fast tremble of accepting hearts.
Light now, and slow revolutions through space.
This place, placement, placid, pellucid.
Transcendent fingers frosting fine feathers,
Growing, though not grasping,
Water flowers framed in ice.
Small time, halted, crystalline.
Slow arcs of how things are,
How they happen.
Seen, unseen, diverted, amalgamated.
Dawn chorus and the moments of frost.
Suspended breath, then
Light and song.
No more, nor no less
Than this.
—
simonhlilly 