Floodgate

When morning cast the stars aside

And the chill of night had all but died

As sleep removed its blanket pall

From the waking eyes of all

The poet stretched his limbs and dressed

And wandered out to see the blessed

Grove and mound, but with a sound

Of water that was not there before…

A singing stream had grown overnight

Centuries old, with smooth stones covered in moss

The path to the grove is overtaken

Its source bubbles up from under the earth

From the seed…

The poet drank sweet water from a cupped hands chalice

He was baptized at the stream by a mourning dove

All the loveliness in the world was in her

All the sadness flowed out into the forest and into thin air

Mist-wrapped trees, the tattered shrouds of night, as she

Beckoned downstream

Nothing but death, the ageless kiss of the queen

The most beautiful thing is the deathless unseen

No end to the miraculous waters that stream forth from the earth

And the stream grew into the blue royalty of a river

The cascades that tumble away like lives into the æther

Surged forth ceaseless like wasted time

As the moon grew fat with days

The river widened and wove its way

Deeper into the mist and the trees

As an unfinished rhyme, as a grief-laden breeze