The Florilegia Project #7: Midsummer

A Mere Map

An ancient clock of blood and bone,
a conversation between stones,
the wilding quality of darkness. 
In those days, the void 
whirled with flowers. 

It's the moment of death we measure from,
by slow degrees and dreams, hearing the owls 
hoot from the winter trees. 

Beyond the event horizon 
of the city's ring road: intoxicating wind, 
sun, and rain of the pagan high hills.
And all the stars of heaven
running wild over the sky.

Orange trees, kindling with fruit,
sweet-scented in a velvet night, intimate
with immediate presence, the invitation to take root.

Eventually, these tides will be 
the only calendar you believe in. Spells, 
rubbed smooth with long handling. 
The rush of waterfalls, and the silence of mosses;
the regal paths of the ice ages.

Something you come to, in good time. 
In the frosty evening, the first moth 
comes to the lamp. 

As always, the words above belong to others. Only punctuation, lineation, and order are my own.