I hesitate before dipping

the rough edge, ripped shard;

ink screwed on, blue clasp,

scratches from the mind's eye;

call you up, embrace, descry

a vision from beyond my grasp, as

time and journeys flung us wide.

 

I listen for the creepers' hum,

the stirring, pollen still beside

the sparrows in the tangled verge.

From beyond rock walls, broken, cracked,

earth and roots of trees attacked,

in centuries completing the purge,

religion making way for fact.

 

And in a tuneless daffodil,

frenzied wings assimilating,

spreads a song through bright sunlight.

In sweating stupor, hand and quill,

I, poised beneath the birds' trill,

give up this silent sense of fight

the words pour forth, this once at will.