HARD RAIN
Hard rain washing the world away.
Leaves fall through cooling air.
The gutters are singing an autumn song.
Rivers wake from summer’s sleep.
I was dreaming of eagles and their turquoise voice
In the days where darkness drums down more suddenly
And the cold cannot any longer be shrugged off.
I was dreaming of a path that was a spiral
And a spiral that was a mirror.
I stand before a silent oak.
Its name is eternal song,
Retribution, its door.
Its mouth is darkness.
In the end we do not know what matters.
This curl of sound, this exhalation of breath
Might be enough for a universe to be complete.
I study the taste of this turquoise,
Turn it between cold fingers
Then walk into the hill ( for all hills are doorways).
If you follow the hare, the path shall lie
Flat as grass before a strong wind.
If you follow the deer, the path shall be
Dappled and filled with birdsong.
If you follow the otter, the path will be
Silver and smooth as moonlight.
If you follow the dead,
Returning to their places,
You shall find your path
To womb and fireside
And questions: why and whereto.
All the warm singing halls
Lost in mist and blood.
All the familiar is a lie.
The world is utter strangeness
And the stars, known but unnamed.
I have been a trowel, an eagle, a pen.
What has been put together, falls apart.
These dreams you do not own.
Each is borrowed to keep you warm.
The path is a name you do not know.
This world is all the clue you will get.
Wrapped and unwrapped, each day a reminder.
There is no greater fool than a poet,
No greater truth than the lie of poetry.
simonhlilly 