Inside a dream, lit by a revenant sun,
patterned by dream leaves, axised by night,
bellies of fish swim upward to sight
below the falls where white water tortures stone.
No one can see the fish swim there alone
and the falls and the fish and the pool are one.

At our feet now the snow swirls dry and fine
over hard ground the leaves tatter rusty and old.
In a loop of the creek the polyhedra of cold
are cross-hexing a pattern no springtime can shake.

And deep in the ice pool our lines are cast.
Having been elsewhere or having been past,
where but now would this winter seem?
And when but here could that leafed summer last
where no one stands by the unwitnessed stream?
And what do pools of deep fish dream?

We sleep, my friend, afloat in warm brine,
alone under stars in a mystic ocean.
When waves’ undulant message sets water in motion
to strike our deep ambiance -- then we will wake.

January 17, 1976

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