skin mosaic

by helen laurence

what can we say

when one trembling leaf

joins a chorus of a thousand?

silence opens the alder entrance:

late light penetrates the stream

curving among tall guardians,

 themselves shielded:

brown, gray, tan mosaic

stippled by velvet black,

roundly their bark accepts

filtered brilliance.

receiving late color we braid

arpeggios of ourselves;

amid green and green and amber air

you and i, goldtinted, glide

parallel with cascading falls

skin of leaf, skin of alder,

skin of liquid, skin of cloud,

skin of you, skin of me:

unending blend

under wild alders what words?

in silence, in wind,

let skin speak to skin

(c) 5/21/04  helen laurence