the first cradle
beneath your waist
and there is no answer for it.
Among the trees your sister
is birch, white and slender.
Your brother is water
sweet upon the sanded shore
and they both bend to greet you.
Younger sister, companion of youth
how far your heart has wandered!
Come and sit,
let me cool your weary feet.
Lean your aching back against me
We can bear your weight.
O sister, dear brother,
how heavy my burden.
I can feel your new roots creaking
beneath it or peruahps it is my heart
breaking again. Wash well, my brother,
but how can you soothe this stain?
When I left you how light my heart
how hungry my belly with all the hunger
that youth and life may allow.
Now I return heart and belly full of sorrow.
Satiate I am and more than enough.
Through the night I am weary
and in the morning I am sick
overfilled again and again in the new light.
How can I stand in the new spring?
I who danced as free as cousin Wind
now swollen and clumsy
an old water skin filled to bursting.
Quick rushed the water by
throwing waves against the rocky shore
spraying the greener grass with his rage.
The pale beech paler grew and lo her bark
pealed back in long tears
and the weary sap fell to soak into dirt.
In your sorrow your pink skin faded
the colour sinking like blood into the clay
leaving you grey.
Through the night you wept
your sister and brother crowded around you.
The red dawn found you
still at last
as still as stone
and still you stand
beneath the beech
beside the sand
seeping salt towards the sea.
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