Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty 

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.