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Before time became time
before word, before water wheel
when the sun’s shadow fell on nameless things
and all things were sacred
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as the Mountain, the Mountain lived,
giving life to things that breathed its air
of rock and water, river
unseen beneath, within, which became
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the Mountain’s blood, mineral
veins branched out, seeped
soil, rock bull drank, spun
round and rolled in flowers
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in the Mountain's valley, gourds and
squash grew wild, colors
and stripes of colors hidden in tall grasses
wind bent gold-green, a rain-
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sun fullness, water flowed into water
giving earth its beetles and millipedes
tunneled deep, bridge between
above and beneath
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Day the living day, nature's pure
equilibrium, river and Mountain,
a black bird on a black branch
still as rock, keeping watch
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over tide, ice formed valley slope
to corrie, morraine under meltwater
coincidence of sun, red-bellied bird born
from water, spirit of water, spans sky
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A drop on a leaf, slides, hangs
for a moment, tension, release
drop's body, what is reflected
of the world All-Nature, arc,
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what is within, more than element,
force, bond, falls without reaching
eft, smiling, pink tongue slow drinks
lake enters body, body a sea
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of mystery, dream, waking and unwaking
Night the sleep of fire, lightning
mind's memory, burning pine, wind
picks up storm without rain
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Mountain returns to beginning, mind
falls back to earth's beginning, or never
beginning but eternal being, before object,
water wheel turning future song
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consuming fire mineral metal, vegetable
colors morph to Nightshade creatures
serpiginous wisps of Mountain's will
shades rise, swirl round the burning fire,
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swallow air, smoke, funneling in-breath
fire shrinks, subsides, leaving new earth, sky
clears stars silent, moon enormous vermilion
chop, embered seal from circled emptiness
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illumines pines, bull roams, Mountain
a corner of the evolving shape, wind
brings seeds, tempered isolation
breeds diversity, genes
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drift, river to river spills to gold to green,
each periphery a part, each blemish
cloud perfection, mantis tearing bee apart
to eat, each bee individual being
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Mind spun from twin-spiral knot
river the river sounds away
moon waxes and wanes the same
each word echoes of the Dreaming
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Mountain, animal, tree, stone
water speaks, fire speaks ore into air
energy's eternal delight, who
desired, they arrived at night
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floating on vessels as if out of some
foreign future, faces rimmed with steel
centering two arrows numbers circled
one line spinning, upright figures
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of empty suits, marching into earth
ignoring the living who watched in awe
the figures drinking the river, stripping the trees
reaching for Mountain's core substance
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Red-bellied bird dove, bull charged,
insects snapped and stung
but found nothing, no resistance
not even vapor the empty suits
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mere image mining rock, gathering
energy in thin side-cases, saving every
drop of discovery, turning the Mountain
into formless waste, quick the figures
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worked, quicker than any memory,
then, for the last time in memory,
the Nightshades morphed, rose up,
swirled round the empty suits
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faster and faster, wind and lightning,
thunder trembled earth, figure and shadow
vanished, vessels vanished, scattered
squash and gourds calcined ash
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The black bird watched smoke, water
wheel porthole the sound of mourning
time's reign wind-carried words
no return to before, the Mountain
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scarred, self-purifying, self-healing
now tongue, now body, we climbed
temple-forming footsteps, breath
to breath cycling sun and trees
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For us living no longer wilderness
worshipe instilled, devoutness,
mountain making cities, roads lined
with corn pollen, take root, take root
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