When Will This Serpent Shed Its Skin

Country peeling
Old crusty skin
Lovers and haters
Plucking at the drifting flakes
Blown before
cynical currents
Trying to patch tattered dreams
That still
In their gaunt eyes gleam
Like unflinching agate
In sun-blasted
Wind-blasted
Mute deserts

I Remember

A squirrel settles on my shoulder
Nibbling on a nut
It’s long furry tail entwines around my neck
I sigh, pick up the gentle animal
And hold it in front of my face –
It close’s its small eyes, nuzzles my nose
And nimbly leaps from my hands
And easily up the tree…

A short distance away
The gentle murmur of a brook
I remember one day too Gugu
We bent down to look
Into the clear depths of a pool in a valley
And two young love struck faces
Were gazing up at us
You threw a stone into the glassy surface
And the faces were broken into shards...

I stand up and turn my back to the south
Where I came from I don’t know when
And never care to know again
As a grey dove whirrs from the open sky
Settles on the tree
And coo cooe’s down at me
That it is time to start gathering dewy fruits
For my morning meal
And the doe’s are waiting in the dale
Their dug’s swollen with fresh milk
That my bloodless hands they do not fear
Shall squeeze into a gourd

The Crowning

I shall crown your waist with a bouquet
Of fragrant blossoms
I shall plead with the kind sky
Just to drop one silver star
From its shimmering bosom
That I shall press upon your navel

I shall ask the sucked out sickle in the night sky
To lend its softest shine
To the warmth that courses through your blood
That your skin can drip milk
And be textured as the finest silk

I shall plead with the wind to be merry
And waft freshly and briskly past your dale
That I shall fill with birds
Of the sweetest song and finest plumage

I shall ask the setting sun
To turn down its fierce wick
And become a soft crimson
Above the wrought boughs of ancient trees
That you may look up to behold this vision
And O I see your angelic face turned my way

The Crowning

I shall crown your waist with a bouquet
Of fragrant blossoms
I shall plead with the kind sky
Just to drop one silver star
From its shimmering bosom
That I shall press upon your navel

I shall ask the sucked out sickle in the night sky
To lend its softest shine
To the warmth that courses through your blood
That your skin can drip milk
And be textured as the finest silk

I shall plead with the wind to be merry
And waft freshly and briskly past your dale
That I shall fill with birds
Of the sweetest song and finest plumage

I shall ask the setting sun
To turn down its fierce wick
And become a soft crimson
Above the wrought boughs of ancient trees
That you may look up to behold this vision
And O I see your angelic face turned my way