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Then through the quiet room a knock rang loud Upon the oaken door—and much relieved, Gawain stood up, thanked Arthur, quickly bowed, And stopped to see the hall held Guinevere. She smiled as she entered, waved them down And with a voice that seemed to ring with cheer Proclaimed: “my husband and my nephew—come! What are you doing here, while all draw near? Indeed, the feast already has begun And you are sitting here! Gawain, you mope, Whatever choices you have made are done And you returned, when we had little hope— Now come! The night is lightened with their joy And mine, and Arthur’s too—the bards dev

Then through the quiet room a knock rang loud Upon the oaken door—and much relieved, Gawain stood up, thanked Arthur, quickly bowed, And stopped to see the hall held Guinevere. She smiled as she entered, waved them down And with a voice that seemed to ring with cheer Proclaimed: “my husband and my nephew—come! What are you doing here, while all draw near? Indeed, the feast already has begun And you are sitting here! Gawain, you mope, Whatever choices you have made are done And you returned, when we had little hope— Now come! The night is lightened with their joy And mine, and Arthur’s too—the bards dev

Midway between the wild and the tamed Enveloped with the smell of berry buds While herbs below so carefully are named On sunlight-burnished wood staked through the mud And where a living veil of shade withdraws To dapple scattered green on every stone I sat beneath it once, and there I saw A rain of silver blossoms overflowed. Now I am grown beyond that wistful child Who saw and never thought to wonder how A cultivated place could be so wild With leaves and blooms together on one bough And now I sit and breathe the depth of wonder Of worlds somehow between—and somehow sundered.

I dreamed of trees. Bright boughs and blooms Through gloom and morning spilled While I brushed back their silver leaves That sunlit skies had filled With gilded wash--the vermeil sight Above the dusky bark Seemed starry trains above the moon And night's enclosing dark And I stepped under such a sky: New-formed, bejeweled, and bright And wished I could forever dwell Within its dim half-light. There nothing stirred; no beast or bird Dwelt in the forest there Though I heard silent rivers trill Still wand'ring swift and fair Through banks embraced by cattail roots; Through drooping willow leaves That rustled in the water's rush

We didn’t mean for you to rise Up into the ashes of a martyr But you did; No one will criticize Now that your weight is lifted From the crushing earth. I feel all my groundedness— Roots tangle my feet, The soil grabs my breaking heart, My lungs clot with dirt. How must it feel, gazing down Wide and expansive, On our fragile, gasping bodies Buried under the ground We walked and knew and loved and fought— You lost. The grave resigns its hold On every martyred cause: Engulfed in the awful hope Of almost-victory And no reality to re-inscribe The weight of victory’s cost.

Forget the flowers flushing 'gainst the ground Forget the bird-song spilling from the trees Don't gaze enraptured at the world around-- Your softened eyes, wind-swept by summer's breeze And hair caught in the sunlight that surrounds Your face, fresh from the flush of shadowed leaves Only remind me of what you have found Within this world, ignoring all my pleas To be with me instead--to look at me. Remember me, whom you should love the most And I am not a bloom and not a tree Do not compare us with such flighty boasts But put your paper down, your pen away And come inside--please come inside, and stay.

No draft of wellspring draws the same effusive sigh as wildflowers on the grass when windstorms fly in violent, happy, gusts through speckled shoots of blooms and cattail reeds bent over banks cut deep with clouding plumes. I feel in weathered breaths this sudden shock of spring: then drops of rain; your parted hair to which they cling, and suddenly the flush of overburdened clouds all rushing to the drier ground to weep their desperate joy aloud. The dampened scent of sweet enthralling gentle flowers enraptured in the air, weighed low from bowers of starlit blossom trees now settles on your skin and draws between your dusted touch to cloud