(after thunder perfect mind)
deep in the city of stone forms –
(the houses like giant pebbles,
squared-off, radiating in the sun)
i was bound in an alcove –
and when the city burned
and with it, me
good people did nothing
so now i am like cinder
i am fast and slow, fluens and stans
i take ancient paths, rock paved, alone
i am found in crowded squares
i drink the wind of mountain passes
and snow glisters on black rock
i plunge into ponds
breathing water and weeds
i draw the sky with charcoal fingers
i eat the mud of fields
i am waif and princess
virgin and too-young whore
pure of body-heart,
ravaged by all
i drag behind me placards that
speak endless truths
too fast to read, slower than time can record
and you who seek me
you, misfit, apprentice of folly, soul that is lost
look for me in your next breath or your last
see me in cloud streaks at dawn
in the hollow before a wave collapses
in the space where a bough was
before it nodded in the wind
wait with a spider’s longing for its prey
lust of a mosquito for blood –
perhaps i’ll be in your footfall, faintly echoing,
or in your falling, to the earth
for my ways are devious –
and i am a danger
to those who can’t see
the fleeting and the still