Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Tulip for a New Millennium



Find what way, you sing,
we each are made to catch and release

(like your tight cup of petals)
more, oh more, long-needed light

after all the torn, wounded
centuries under all those darkly wed

to themselves, to Self only, while we waited
while we wept and sang, dear tulip, we who

once lived lost in your beauty:  we
are no longer so tender or weak

we hear and feel now the desperate red
whip of the ache of this time:

and together, just now possible:
together what we gather--syllable

brush stroke, bold note swelling
and sailing over and through--

what we make and gather enough
at last, an ocean against all rivers

dark and void, this ocean greater
gracing hands that open and release

image after image over the mass
graves and palaces of history and out onto

a dazzling plain (far, near) where finally
we walk, weaponless and unafraid.


(c)Vivian Teter
from Edge by Edge, 2007

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