Quiet

Slipping into the 

silence 

as if into water

the trees whisper 

with unbearable tenderness 

and the weight

of the world slides

down and 

down from my temples 

and neck and 

shoulders until

I am as weightless

as the argentum tinted

sky.

I need another week

of the rapture of solitude

and time in the

temple of the empyrean 

where only the

priestesses and poets

muses and musicians 

warriors and word spinners 

are allowed to enter

so that the pieces 

of me may have time

for the glue to set

before I am fragmented 

and re-broken.

Stillness

laps around me 

like a pool of water

all the voices inside me

fade into nothing 

and I am re-formed

like the pot metal

inside the crucible 

all the impurities are

burned away into smoke

and the metal is ready 

again

for the hammer.