Selfie

 

The view scopes to a scrubby shore

where mountain slopes have cracked in sun

and yellowing shrubs have sucked the margins dry.

 

In a moment of calm and sun

astride a smooth stone, your outer thigh

tenses to push back for balancing.

 

Of your child you made a chieftain`s daughter,

the toes of her right foot extending

white and shapely in the water.

 

Your smile is pure Gioconda!

 

It is not a time for sacrifice.

It is a time for drawing everything to yourselves

to be at one and naked in water.

 

Birdless, windless, soundless, songless

high white clouds echo

the mercury swells at your feet.

 

Ask the name of the nameless lake:

the lake is in your mind,

the lake will not be found

 

you take the lake from your head

and empty it of sound

and somewhere underneath your eyes

 

it is echoing in your bone.

.