ELEMENTAL TONGUES

It is mid-afternoon in late spring some time ago. A young man and woman, not long married, are setting up camp in what is now called Chickasaw National Recreation Area--a sudden green breath of redcedar, sycamore, prairie and hill rising and falling like magic in southeastern Oklahoma. Fed by mineral springs, a small creek purls through the lower level of this place, close by their campsite.


Earth: Children, what myths would you have,
live by? All stories are one. Heed your feet,
soft, hesitant, trying to enter me like rain;
trust the touch of my bones warming
your hands' curves with knowledge of stone,
the pulse of something other,
older than blood. Take my taste. It's day;
yet feel how your fingers carry dirt's dark
tang of truth flush from my mouth.
Tonight,
your flesh pitched on mine, I'll tell you
the dream beyond words.


Water: Antelope, Buffalo spring me fresh, fresh--
one long liquid word holding the buttery sun,
stroking stones green, plashing your laughter with leaves
drinking their way to the bottom you stand on. Feel how
gold mesh there ripples your voices, your fathers',
your daughters' you don't know you have cool over sand,
how it carries them down the way they must go--a green
clear way under tree-spread, forever. You love
me more than I can say . . . so cup
my wet whisper close to your ears, my chill
stillness. I'll enter your silence.


Air: You draw breath,
breathe out--we're
consecutive spirits.
You melt into me;
I embody you both,
fill the sacs of your lungs
like wild grapes swell
the hillside with sun. One
breath more . . . and you
unfurl like light,
vetch your selves on the sky.