Slow-held in the grotto
we danced in brindled calico conflagration.
Fishermen returned hinge-eyed too-small fish to requisite
water. I danced with Mother and the undertow
on sand, and with Father in sonic-sounded deep no echo
could outwit. I opened my patent-leather
purse: the unclasped ocean poured out of it.
Furnaced in topaz fires, misfits, angels fever–
fed: I could not burn in massacres of fire,
golden statuary, the dead undead beside Abednego
unlit in flame in Babylon. I could not drown in water's
apposite quarters: unbound
restive dead in each wave's climax.
Cameo, snow-bound
white-isleted, stilled figure solo
on floe-graved agate-
does the knife-notched goddess know
once she gloried in Father's arms not Mother'S,
moving, as in parallax
obscured, in infinite waves and counterfeit fires?
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Birthday
28
This river-tended life.
Many gifts from mountain peaks
move through its veins,
many strains of village soil layer its field.
From many sides, life's fluid mystery
streams from grain to grain.
From east and west, many song-weavings
