Sleeping Beauty
Robins on my porch
Robins on my porch
Are akin to wakedness
Candles in the brackets
Dance their form of sleep.
My body is a cathedral
In the recalled dusk.
Like leather wings and skin,
All light is here.
And should a moon rise
Would it recall
A spindle
By a window
Like a sheath of gold?
I am no more than stillness
And no less than dawn.
My breath is a carved repeating
Of the tundra.
Have there been frogs and dark things
In the pond beyond the walls?
I am clay-eyed
In the darkness
And my hair is long.
If you think to wake me
Just remember
That I will give birth
To philosophy and god,
And should an ogre
Astonish us
We will be ready
With a nest of kites and kettles.
To speak completely,
There is nothing here unseen,
Nor unattended.
I have given all myself to sleep
And in return
I have got roses
By their red hair
And kissed them.
Spin for me a sign of trust
And I will spin tomorrow.
