Creation

quick splashes
of the mother boar
as she circles the pool in search of him
as she crosses the river

he reads time in the swaying of trees
and when, in the night, each star dies
a new light ignites in his head

the leaves move more slowly now
the light fades
as his heart beats faster

in an expression of limbs
he rises from the ground
he climbs the scattered rock
its hot edges piercing through old skin
and comes to a goat path
where he falls to a rhythm of running
through an asylum of trees
past a meeting of crickets
by a high pool
that sleeps in its caking of mud
to a cave of worn darkness
where he follows the wind in,
down a cool recess
to a hollow of rock
and a bed of furs, by a nest of old ashes

he wishes to sleep but
waits with one eye on the twilight opening.
Perhaps he has died already
his head in a thorn bush
his bones all stringy with meat
left to the scavengers

But he wishes to sleep
and enters a world of loving and fighting
beyond his believing
and the dripping of the rock
where he reads time
and the slanting of the moon
decays
to the constant whisper of grey light

He wakes to the half-rise of the morning,
as it fingers the dark rock
showing its contours
birthing the world in new hope,
pausing the horse from its charging

he walks to the pool
through the world heavy-laden with life,
he bends down to the water
and regards his reflection

He scoops up the mud, red and orange, and
embracing in his arms, he carries it
seeping
to the cave, where he drops it near the ashes.
On the smooth rock
he places the mud with two fingers
easing it into the pores of the stone
and sees the round belly of a horse,
a horse that is running,
and then of another he traces the shape
with the ash of a stick. The heads that are straining
the white black mains
the limbs bare touching the ground.
He steps back and cries at their majesty
their stillness of life
their freezing of time
their real unreality