(for Sonia and Michelle, the gauche mystique)
Liberty guides us
on the narrow path
her ponytail a torch
for the groaning peoples.
Someone has dropped
a bead of pomegranate,
I imagined Kore rapt
in the act of eating
in this shaded place
of wild asparagus,
the surface fissured
where she was taken under.
For a moment I am dazed,
it seems the rocks are glinting, it is
mica, I cannot grasp
this universal flashing
it is mica in the rocks
the rocks glitter,
theotokos is in her
canopy of rock
mica is mined
by the children of Jharkand
in Bihar state,
we may not wonder
the newfound
torrent surges
below the towering cork-oak,
it is early spring
the sufferings do not end
the mica flashes
I try to hold this knowledge
in my head.
