Knee-deep in the ancient stream,
The hunter fills his bottle,
Then beneath the willow lay to marvel the
Light-shafts toppling the fog at close of day;
A brow wide and wise, softened by strands honey-toned
And reaching from temple to fine cheekbone,
A thin white scar, which his finger thoughtfully strokes,
Content to be alone in forests far from home.
While winsome shadows haunt her dream existence
A soul unspoken carried in a photon beam,
No home as yet, nor body fair
A form as vague, vaporous as air.
Inadvertently his boot heel at the water’s edge
Dislodges critical particles of soil hereto undisturbed,
By human intervention, except wild swans and deer;
Embodying inherent philosophies of elongation,
The unique nuclei, undeterred by
A centripetal inscription left by logical elves,
Held captive by a beam of light,
Spring! evolve with crystalline grace,
Intrepid curls and pliant integrals,
So she develops a place;
Emboldened by mimesis, her life-form
Arcs, as complex as arrow-trails
From his bow sent and sent again aloft,
Fervently iterated to infinity -
He who, practiced in his art, pensively furrowed his brow,
To attain a coalescent transport,
Injected by transcendence and divinity,
Perspired, as in the heat of her engenderment,
This beauteous maiden, still invisible,
Yet enveloped the air in despair and delight.
Supply her threads launch and cohere,
Walls of wavering fiber appear,
Aspirant flesh, plaited by echoes from disparate sources,
She – who implored for Grecian figures to be revealed,
The scene of the hunt,
In the curvy relief, embellished by a
mysterious touch,
The transient artist of now-forgotten
fragments -
She grew slaked at last.
What had lain beside her for many a year;
In earthenware disgrace, by her revered.
Silvers leafier than
Any forests in existence, loom,
Where owls are rulers
And wolves barter with men for their souls or tomb,
Unbeknown, the cry of devils,
Reawakened his dalliances far away,
Timely restoration of pity and brutality,
To the solace of morality.
*
Returning to his secluded spot,
He came upon the sleeping nude,
A youthful Artemis garlanded in leaves,
The green architecture of her form,
Imbued with passion -
Her being externalized by an ignition of wonder;
The hunter knelt down, not too close,
To touch her exposed shoulder,
She opened her eyes and returned a smile
As if to recognize his soul, and mutual tears
Fell between them as she placed her hand to his scarred cheek.
Spoken in a maiden-tongue,
Out-spun, this centrifugal language
Played out on papyrus between oak-leaf and Arabic gum,
The urn’s sacred heart;
A soft polyphony of sound in dreams,
Now the coincidental scroll of digitized phonemes.