[The First Breath]

The first breath is green, the second blue. So we proceed through yellow, green, orange, pink and red.

Until the final step: unto the black that stretches without end; an inviting void; a reaching hand of immaterial empty.

Then comes the laughter

at the rustle of a branch.

The path, by a blackbird travelled.

The path, which the quenching foot traverses

in silent reverie.

        By the wayside way

    By the seaside sea

The still deep of motionless waves meets the brimming beach black

as tar.

The sea stills the beach as the beach halts the sea.

Only a civilization of the mighty may build upon these shores;

would build upon these shores

towers tall enough to see the inked horizon curve.

To oversee a frozen domain, sneer at its life and decree

in cold command

with a hand least twice as might as its wielder

docks built

and a fleet to use them.

The sailors breathe: first green and then proceed along the plotted course.

They do not dare to look back, meet the blank stares coming thundering down from the sea-wall.

The dawn of eons rises; the red prince 

gawks at the observation platform.

The sand rumbles.

He has travelled far but is no traveler.

He has learned much but knows little.

The lost silhouettes have their judgement made:

kneel and defer

to the sparrows flight,

the ratchet of the obsidian-drilling woodpecker;

with forehead to the ground hear

the laughter of the eons

at the mighty

vibrate your skull with the rhythm of the ground.

There is nothing to worry about, children,

whispers the wise

as whispered the prince to his followers

standing on the rubble by the now blue water:

his toes over the ledge, his mind far gone

past the living earth:

It was with an empty sky, a bird.