mantra review

Waking in the Forest

In the dream I cradled the stone head of a horse.
I carried an injured swan.

I stepped inside the thatch-roofed cottage
where the blind harpist was born

and listened as he played
the words of Yeats and I turned weightless

as the feather of a wren, a grass blade,
a mica flake,

His harp: a simple wooden wing. I looked out
from his window as the meadows burned

kaleidoscopic green, then woke
dappled, alone in sunlight. How our living bones

attempt to mimic lucent strings.
The creaking towers of the pines swayed

like drunken gods above. I sat up where I’d lain
wanting to transcribe the vibrations

of the bees gorging on the loosestrife--burrowed
deep, and those firstborn songs of bards

and troubadours who held the dripping combs
that salve the heart.