Quiet Calf

Quiet Calf

Quiet Calf

Wring us out, stretch us taut upon the gray bone frame
Scrape us down lunellum-thin as the wide moon blade

For we are codex and caesar, the offspring of mechanical gods
Inflections pressed in virtual folios we are to each cow its calf

Carry the jasmines; the saffrons of our time, calcite prophecies 
emblazoned in the cockled ranges, gilded in continental divides

Under a fallen pejeng moon white buffalo spirits pound to crush
the hard harmonics of history in us, down to a form of raw time

They amplify the faded velleities that cling to its valley walls
as calligraphy the word (and true consort of vellum) - elegant

to pen as alfalfa - is all flair and flourish in the nourished nib's
unending congress. In streams of ink-song, tear-strewn tendrils

fall from the gyre-eye drumhead skies, the bodhrans and banjos,
timpanis weave, interleave our celebrations, the flint of our lives

Bear too the wildfire children tapping céilís on the counterhoop
absorbed in the patience of elm, loose-bound for gatherings yet

to come. Flexed, each breath is an age of song deep-stitched
into wrinkled silence, where cockleshells pucker from under

ancient sand. Outroam the Runicus quiet one, deliver whole
these few sweet heartbeats, these glimpses of humanity