13. Blue Oracle 
In light the darkness surrounds.
In darkness the light surrounds
In center the light broadens
In center the darkness thickens
We do not fear this
In grass we weep
In sand we laugh
In height we dance
In depth we collapse
We do not fear this
"Wherever
we walk
we will make
Wherever
we protest
we will go planting
Make poems
seed grass
feed a child growing
build a house
Whatever we stand against
We will stand feeding and seeding
Wherever
I walk
I will make" (Wherever by Muriel Rukeyser)
The eagle simply lifts off the ground with a strength of wing nearly unimaginable and is gone into the sky. Some 50 or 60 feet into the air it becomes a tree, roots, trunk, branches, an oak suspended in midair, every leaf finely etched against a cloudless sky. The branches are supporting a boulder of immense weight. The effect is of mammoth density and heaviness floating weightless.
We do not fear this
Bedeviled by the light
on surfaces of moss,
from interiors of fibers
glowing on rocks,
I see green hair
embrace the sun.
I am transmuted
by a shimmer of gold
Moss-light sifts through
the cells of my brain
and grows, stretches,
rages, dies.
We do not fear this
On a cliff face
one hundred feet
over gently serrated
blue-gray waves,
we sit, wind’s force
full in our faces
like pressure of
rampant starlight
in dream:
that inevitable
insistent voice
inside us
both says:
"Jump. Leap.
Fly. You
can fly!
Yes.
Fly!"
We are held, however,
by lion's roar
delirium of
black-eyed susans,
intensely swaying
bodies and heads,
tenderly, wildly,
out and over
devouring space,
above water.
We do not fear this
Magic
in moon's arc
behind
sea
of
clouds:
Death hangs
on the
scythe:
now you see it
now you don't
We do not fear this
"And who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer’s evening, among the sounds of the night." (James Agee, A Death in the Family)
We do not fear this
Fusion and dispersion:
furled bud compacted,
bare dream of bloom.
Photon compressed, zero,
nightmare energy
inside light...
In nothing is...
everything:
pressure:
luminous
black-soft
wind.
I cannot hear my
parents' cries in
their moment
of love...
cannot hear furious
atoms falling
back into
nothing.
But I have heard a subtle
suspiration that shakes
mountains and oceans.
I am listening to the
incisive music
of flesh rent from
the heart of...
empty...
space.
We do no fear
Elm tree in winter in spring
In height it spars
gray-brained folds of
snow and snares
tickling crystal spikes,
an electric tracery of sparks
frozen against the heart of
the sky's thorny rage.
Through the window
a filtered sizzling
of shimmering
emerald elves
sing:
Listen....
Listen....
Listen....
Listen