Tongues

Sure as amber,
light as the lizard’s eye,
with words like fire,
or wax dripping on a coin
—the face concealed,
each eye a tallow valley—
the old man turns,
chanting gibberish
hoarse with sense:
a fierce wind blowing,
a melting fact.

Like wax or fire
such words unleash
only in the flowing,
the hand ignites each letter.
Sure as vespers,
bright as the fringed sky,
the senses burn at dusk,
parchment curls,
the tongue is pillared.

And in this silence
of fallen coins
—the failing light,
the gutted trees—
scribes gather
like quail in a blind thicket,
like birds who have yet
to know the sky.

Give us the cup of speech,
they whisper,
their ink pots open,
feathers poised for flight.

Appeared in Alchemical Texts