Poem 138: Pyro Viriditas/ the Green Fire

swaying reason-ably
to the rhythm and rhyme
of our safely back to back
promise, absolute
in this belled shelter
of shivered time, grinding
heat into this moments
sliver of hammering cold,
turning cartwheels
in the heat of the snow rutting
in the frosted track,
watched by the iron rimmed eyes
of the tufted hawk,
cloaked in his ticking solitude,
as he bough treads,
wing spreads and feather trails
sunlight, moving the earth
a friction in the axle of the heart,
a sweet chariot coming
for the potency of reflections
under still surfaces,
kaleidoscoping the privacy
of stones
numb running in the icicle
as water shackles light
for the centre to hold the
gateway, half-open, half-closed
sees the moon lidded eyes flicker,
as sleep becomes a hood
for the cowling sun,
and for its warmth of fur on skin
I cannot be any closer
than this interdependence
of light singing for shadow,
always the clouded sister
and siren of mercy
for the winter one,
blackthorn crowned
by the dark clouds rim-light
that becomes
the white rose from
a dung hillside risen
stinging the shepherd
snow blind
in the muted rhythms
of his sanctified keep,
keeps mayhem without,
and a fiery genesis within
this evenings embrace,
locked tighter than the drum
roaring in its blood,
beating at the glacial web,
embalming the sightless root,
as the gaping maw of light,
bellowing velocity
turns in its grave
of scrabbling constellations
and collapsing orbits
of the settling sun,
setting a cadence of stars
in the hub of night
pounding spokes into the rim shot,
flint locked
and rifled the spark of courage
now leaping into
the quantum thread
that quickens the germ
first term in us
-pyro viriditas-, the green fire
in this instant cracks
the twig golden
and where the bough brakes
creation thunders
child like, in its kernel of ice.