august sunlight
paints trees and stone-fences rosy
winter, like memory measures our brief life
caught in season's fragile balance
stone and moss grow in mountain's shadow
making pensive all who pause
on this sunburned hollow plain
compelling us like Narcissus
to face our mirror'd self
in this garden
of once unparalleled beauty
waiting for rain
shy wind-spirits skip and dance
inside their sculpted alluvial rings
creating havoc with clouds and dust
oblivious to chaos
wanderers still roam
the breadth of this curved stone
living by instinct -
reading fate in playing cards
describing life in the lines of a hand
we are dust of star and stone and space
destined to return to our nameless home
to build again new worlds of sap and spirit
for we have travelled this path before
know the pulse of the raging flame
never not alight
fire-stone
near perfect
burns crimson
soul refined
pure gold
abandoned
to all
but love
Pamela Sidney 2004
