1

Pillars of light guide you,

and waves part.

Even by day the fire

that rises high in the night

blazes against the sun.

You will cross over

unafraid, and your way

will be safe.

Over every rushing stream

a bridge, and before you the presence

that shines in all that is.

2

The agate’s eye looks back,

and the eye of the storm,

and the whirlpool.

The gaze of unharrowed earth

follows you from beneath

your noise and haste.

In peaceful places

deep calls to deep,

and you are ushered in

and in, one ledge leading

to another, to footholds 

and falls and shelter.  

Beauty will overtake you,

busy as you are about many things.

Draw your breath deep and sink

into this knowing, here, 

in the great stony places.

3

Where opals dwell, 

and sapphires, quartz

and Paleolithic coral,

obsidian and mica,

mountains move

to a secret bidding.

Hidden rivulets drip, 

every drop bearing

its widow’s mite, 

leaving its small deposit

along the interstices

where grains of color

gather and grow.  All this

happens in the darkness, 

unmeasured, unmarked.  

What falls in the forest 

where we do not see it,

what trills and sings 

where no ear hears also

does this unwitnessed 

on shifting surfaces

where the belated eye finds

only a record, deceptively 

still, verb made noun, for now.