THE ANIMAS

Avalanche

Come with me to the meadow
And I will dance
I will dance until the sun splits into a million gleaming shards
Bright as heaven, sharp as silver
That will crown the top of the world
With a lucent light
As pure and piercing as the past

Come with me to the meadow
And I will dance
Until my feet bleed snowmelt flowers:
White lace arnica, cream filled lilies, blue columbine etched with gold
Larkspur, lupine, nodding limpid bluebells
Simple white daisies
Flung wildly open to the brilliant slashing sun

Come with me to the meadow
And I will dance a note of such sweet pure music
As this thin air has never tasted before
I will dance a note so clear and clean
That it will shatter diamonds, scatter light, surmount the sun
A note that will shake the soft spring air
Like a still, single cyclone,
Splintering the silence,
Slicing the sheer skin that spellbinds the snow
Until it shivers, shudders, sighs
And slides

Stay with me in the meadow
When the sharp shards of the sun go out
When the roiling whiteness settles all around like a lake of light
When all the world is silent . . .
Sing for me in the meadow
And I will hold your voice in my mouth like snow
Like silence, like silver, like splinters, like sorrow
Then softly
I will swallow

Stay with me
In this mountain meadow full of moon
Milk on marble
Pearls on platinum
Alabaster kissing alabaster
Like a promise never broken
Like a love never lost
My pale bare feet against the
Silent snow

Come my love and I . . .
Will

Dance



©Edwina Peterson Cross

Avalanche is the First Place Winner of the 2004
Palabras Press ~ Dance-With-Words Poetry Contest