Tuesday 22 April 2014

The Secret Valley's Starlit Road.


Coiled, the self swallower, starlight
Made this path
Between the boulders;
You know the dark stone's secret
That it is the bed
Of the sunlit, foaming sea whence rises Aphrodite.

Now we walk here, dark
Where the water ousel
Shouts his claim
Where the life force
Flood falls
Its way toward his base;
Here waits the King of the Mountain
With all his feather clad
Birches.

His dancing daughters,
Wrapped in folds of wind
Come forth, root stepping
In a low sway
Across his green & purple banded pubis,
Lightly graced
To bridge fern-home;
The secret valley's starlit road
Of ancestral serpentine light.

The dancing birch-tree daughters
Advance
In limb graceful gesture thus:

She will raise her right hand
To stir or calm
Forest roarers.

She will lightly
Pace outward
With her left foot.

All manner of
Small, usually unseen
People attend her.

She will sweetly turn
Her right hand out
With the palm upwards.

Foam of the river
Sparkles
Upon it.

She will leap
Forth
Over evening airs.

To land lightly on her
Right foot,
Clouds will part to reveal the sky.

She will sway her hips
All manner of buds
Will break green; birds will shout.

With every whisper
Of her startling display
Which so moves & awakens all who witness it,

Her face will change
Her smile; pursed lips
Brows raised; her eyes shining.

The King's endearment
Thunders tumult
Makes cloud rays to arch over her;
Old deep rooted
One
Remembers all;
Another dance
To music stepping
Out over ages of deep
& he sees her display
A mere
Flicker of light & shade
Passing fast & sweet
Across
His mineral mind.

It pleases him
Like sunlight on the sea
During that long, long day
When the ancestral serpent
First wormed out
Onto strand sand;
Breathed air
Looked around (their eyes met)
Barked with joy.

So now
We must
Dance this dance
Of fern secret
Of bird-wing water plummet
Of valley voices;
Intangible starlight
The heavy
Hill;
We unwind ourselves
& fall to Earth;
He holds us.