Spacious and widely set are these woven walls
stinging nettles wrapped firmly around whipcord center
a promise of pliable willow branches,
carefully soaked switches
cut green, bound in beautifully colored leaves thick with thorns.
Laced with the fabric of breath, desire, mystique,
keeping the luminescent beyond–
–beyond.
However, in those laced moments that the air stirs first languorously,
then rising to delight in how it can twist and whirl
a joyful movement of shifting scents
breeze spraying aside the curtains
they, no heavier than dreams.
Rolling across the stones laid intricate with care
drifting to cross the lone pond.
Glassine and undisturbed as puddled silver
thickly magick and deeper than deep can be known–
–as the air quenches and remakes.
Where tendrilled branches cast ripples,
serpentine gashes play at being rivulets of liquid
cutting once pristine layers
on which reflections lay.
Alive and shedding mirrored skin,
sloshing possibility and promise
as ancient hearts cast aromas in the air,
only as decayed wood left to rot can.
Dust and brittle powdering husks
broken down from their heights to furnish food and fuel
that the next generation might cast ramparts of growth
riding high on the bones of the Old.
Silently they sit.
Gazing down at the scarred and skittering pool,
beaming hope in darkly radiant intensity
from behind eyes set deep with focus.
Reflecting, and wishing fitfully,
that as it calms,
they will find relief from their personal tempests
peace through the restoration of waters
returning to their unblemished state.
A cauldron of insight,
slickly metallic and alluring
where they might at last catch sight of their foes,
drag them into the shaded glen,
bleed them onto the stones,
leave their corpses ragged and torn,
that they can be reborn with the changing days.
Blissfully drift into their thoughts unfettered by care,
smile indulgently at the colorful cacophony
as it unfolds behind their drooping lids,
Oh!–what flowers Spring would surely bring.