More than Light

i.

What more than light sleeping
in the runnels of these woods
troubles the deep shade?
This world seems other.

The ground sleeps
that holds the sleeping, sodden.
The leaves rouse. Even this air
is of the past.

Lives of small animals are scattering
in front of something. Their breaths
hurt them. They are afraid of seeds.
I fear the fall of leaves not less.

O dark and water, keep me. But not here.
To love nothing is safe.
What's possible is released in cries
to the assaulting air. Who's near?

ii.

What shad of light
wakening in mere water rises easily
and, from the strict arcs of his wrists
shakes off in wet rings manacles of sleep?

Water-weeds shimmer in this merciless changing.
Listening things abandon themselves to stillness.
What more than light and how he carries it
spills from the torn water toward the stones?

Danger begins in reflections where branches
lean through the planes. He slips his snares!
Arrested-all leaves, seeds, breath yielded-
all taken! And he at ease.

Risen he harries his catch
translating what he touches with desire.
Though I come less to love
than he comes to life from slumber, I come.

Listening in these woods that want
my own sound, I hear water, hear
dull pebbles, hear crying
with nothing to hold.

Yet am I held, warm to his
fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, eyes.
Though I faltered, here is light, only light,
bursting, fragmented light, light

hurled everywhere, light burning on every thing,
blessing and ruining what it illumines.
Someone has risen here into more than light
who will never sleep again in the world I come to.

　

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