The Burning River
Sloe,
and black as Gin
I am the slave
of the spated, sibilant river.
It is opaque and powerful,
panting wearily like a dog.
It waits
and implores me,
to drink the perfumed wet earth
from which its voice emits.
In gasps as muted as wisdom,
I grapple in grated tones
to quench the voices of ancestral hunger,
reciting the names of your Wiccan tale.
And, as of fire
eddies of heat and colour form
turbulent sweet taste,
imminent in their thermal latency,
dark in the discomfort of daytime.
For where there is light, there are shadows too.
In this chaos of burning,
I pray for the violence of weather,
Its elemental desire forms the essence of all memory.
Again and again, I inhale a thousand times
the smoky haze of change
against the image of charred water on charcoal.
I am burnt against the cool of evening,
the darkening sky,
and the beat of flaming water on stone.
It is a visceral vision.
I feel the age,
It is as old as the swans of coole,
as certain as the solitary song of Herbsttag,
as definite as the will of water.
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