Lillian Howe

The river runs with secrets that could wash the dead clean,

but what dead Man is rising to bathe?

So, the living must drink from the Parting Glass

in the beams of reflected light from the Looking Glass.

The Old Totem of Time

is washed up on the shore.

Its greedy spaded hands

have stolen that which was never ours to begin with.

There are temporal vines

growing up our carefully lain castle walls and bell towers,

penetrating the stone with their roots of green.

They flower perennially with blue roses

that match the shades of sky and sea,

and we either see or fail to see

those things which are out of our reach.

And so burns the Beautiful Fight,

Burning,

burning through blazing fire

and crying in cavernous floods

to stay in the light of all things.

For anyone who has spent any time in the Real Darkness

will do anything to stay in the True Light.

And I know that I know that I know

where the stars came from.

Do you?

And with each step and turn,

another old part of us crumbles under our own dance.

And there is the fight, night and day,

to stay in the truth of all thought.

For anyone who has been paralyzed

by the putrid and prepossessing glory

of Rotting Rose Philosophies

would do anything to dance again

with more than their own two feet.

And I know that I know that I know

where the stars came from.

Do you?

My Homeward Waltz,

A messy dance: Too many partners cutting in,

Lacking the still point,

reaching for rotten fruit as if it were gold,

being pulled by glimmering gluttons’ gloved hands

where I never wanted to go,

until the falling—

All at once I was pulled up by that bare-handed light and that truth which was real;

trading golden eyes

for crow’s feet

and blue roses

for white lilies.

Now I know that I know that I know

where the stars came from.

Do you?