It was a small garden lane of being,
a stem upon
the trunk of
mighty death,
or did the trunk rise from the stem?
Colors spiraled, horns sounded,
blossoms unfolded in lascivious pink,
and the fruit,
herd within herd,
fled along bowed branches,
melting into each other,
then unforming.
The need to be reborn
trembled in spirals of violets,
climbing stones that were not stones,
rising from cliffs that folded upon themselves.
The need to smell,
to taste,
to feel mouths yet unfilled,
teeth yet to chew,
arose from the flirtation of red flowers,
from lips hungry to kiss
the impossible.
A sculpture unfolded
from living stone,
and stone unfolded from sculpture.
The canvas needed the brush
and the brush dissolved into the canvas.
White paper broke its own silence.
Threads returned to soft white fluff,
paintings returned to grandmother’s hair,
need,
the need of silence for words,
the need of words to return to silence,
the need of ink for whiteness,
the need of free fish
ascending waterfalls
that cast them into being,
then unbeing,
then being again.
Here, in this lane,
the garden folded into the self,
the self dissolved into the garden,
and all needs,
every petal, every stone, every breath,
swirled, collided, sparkled,
and became
simultaneously everything
and nothing.
