Avalanche Over Me (for Maya Lin)
You are the blaze of marine stars
Piled high in a corner
Your pyramid is sharp and rounded
Lay me on your beech dunes
As we float, on conversation supple and smooth like silk
While our breaths float and bounce
Captives in bubbles of the thinnest thought
Black thin lines frame our faces
Yours, serious studious methodical smiling
Mine, agape questions rolling across features
Tell me how you did it
Toadstools surround us
Nodding in cherubic agreement
Small calves to our lowing
This Egypt you built
Pieces and more pieces
Is it layers that sweep down your peaks?
Blinding me, I only see your outlines
Hard angles yet no severity
The storms of your muses
Settle in the purest shapes
And the most serene ideas
These small scale against the larger
Yet nothing loses its intensity
Or simple beauty.
Oct. 31/98
