I saw a wonderous creature lay
a pebble on a sounding shore —
his voice flung wild in pain and joy,
as from his flesh the stone slipped free,
the mucus streaked with crimson threads,
he quickly bent and wiped away.

I saw the glitters flood his eyes,
as he stood and gazed upon the sea;
he turned his shining face on me,
then all my sorrows swam to him
and he ate them with his beard-hung teeth.

Then gathering up his staff and line,
so cautious of his ruined feet,
he crept among the rocks and shells,
while feathered bones twitched on his spine.

My heart cried out to go to him,
yet I turned and fled back up the shore,
in terror of this ancient one,
who potent as the timeless waves
and riven by such pain and grief,
still sacrificed his life and days,
to lay the pebbles by the sea.

An old woman weeds a grave,
beneath a hush of ancient trees,
her brown hands so gentle with this soil.

And she thinks of all the love that’s flown:
those proud dandelions of the sun,
turned to stooping worlds of grey,

then blown to ghosts upon the wind,
so love anew might grow again,
though far away, and not for her.

And in her heart she cries for love —
and Something hears, then someone comes:
he strides the graves on tall green stilts,

his hair a swirl of shining gold
and lifts her in his furry arms
up the stairs of a graveyard house.

He sings his song in a voice like cream,
as he climbs on past the roofs and hills,
heedless of the winds that roar,

that sway the stairs beyond the stars.
Then he comes at last to a fire-lit room
and howls with love and slams the door.