The Dark Spring

[bi_janus]

The Dark Spring
Bi Janus

And it was almost a girl, and she came out of
that single blessedness of song and lyre,
and shone clear through her springtime-veil
and made herself a bed inside my hearing.
Sonnets to Orpheus, I,1—Maria Rainer Rilke

What flows from me
when you tap me
as Moses did the stone
before the elders?

Your staff is curved
and pulses with your heart,
unleashing from me
the darkening blood.

The note from collision
of rod and stone
floats as a girl's song
above our wrestle.

What will you have me do?
I cannot brighten the blood
for our pagan Eucharist.
Listen, mon semblable,

We are twins
born of the same girl
asleep in our hearing,
her song floating

Above us as we strive
in the darkening blood
to understand who we are,
why we are as we are.

Don't despair, sweet friend,
when your mad pounding
can no longer summon
my blood in a dry land.

The girl sleeps again
in both of us now,
and will sleep in you,
dreaming us as we are.