Groundhog Day, 4 AM

Full moon reigns in the West Above

blanketed powder snow Below—

ivory, silver and cerulean meet

in silent, parallel play.

Vermilion and green stay inside.

A screw skates into shadow,

stealing daffodils

for her nuptials.

A deer tramps hooves in the hollows.

Imbolc, the fête of long days past

Yores yawning into the present:

is there space to hold its rest and play in

Technicolor Todays ?

Dryads sleep, nested under earth—

no tests await, no pills to take—

only the slow-wave Dreaming

while wakeful Nocturnes yearn and pine

for release of neck and spine,

when too many cathodes meet their eyes.

“Ma’am? Can you tell me your location?” 911 operator response intones.

If Peacock Juno and Brigid Heal-Smith

invited me to dance

‘round the bonfire

with them,

I would enjoin,

circumambulate and wheel

—warm, around the belly—

for the country crops,

hold a glass aloft,

when will he arrive?

Above, we transmit 110 beats per minute:

5 beats per minute received, in trance

panted breaths heard Below on receiver’s other side:

there is no moor here to meet

on my corner of lithosphere

but ‘neath the long dead grasses

in this southeastern plane

lie groundhogs,

crowned in ribbons, blue and white.

Claw through years of entrances and exits,

day the same after day

tunneling rooms deeper

through root, sand and clay

furrowing to surface —

we meet

Warm palms meet thawed paws,

gentle fingers brush ribboned fur:

together,

we smith verses for the flames,

light candles to meet the Spring

and guide its coiling way,

divining its path, its tracery

upon our skin,

mapping moles as the stars

who burrow up and out

of our bodies, shadowless,

skin as figured firmament

Above, Orion showers sparks

Beneath the towering pines,

warm around the belly,

we are held

we soar

we rest below