Spring

Amaryllis

7 Amaryllis As for structure, the stones formed a grid, a matrix of space—stones: room for water, room for air—stones: the roots grow through you and tether you to their heart. For yet the red banners there lie flag-folded and bound. For the full-blown amaryllis a wayward bloom whose heavy awe leeches light from the white air to host its depraved trumpets’ blare. Deafening, they intone angels’ anthems, red-robed, and wave censers to smother a breath less than Āre, a breath that lets a pure molecule enter, no conflagration of bodies, no worshippers’ wounds proud-flown and waved. Here you lie, myopic bulb of a saturating reign, not yet flashes and top-heavy glare, still quiet, uncharted and set like a stone among stones. Like the cold pure world layered into the land in limestone and slate, shale and granite, basalt, diorite, sandstone, flint— ...