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In a Radiant Field

25 In a Radiant Field —after Dickinson there’s “the crack of a whip so small,” wind practicing through a house of skin. It’s the alchemist standing with her faith in hand. Touching her own ribs she overhears the years of a tree before the lightning struck. Its arms swung above a red brome grass. Birds flocked there, passers-by offered a fortifying shade. Nothing dies completely, she thought, something shines on the horizon. Sometimes a face appears, but it never stays. White roses slip through time— If you need them, she says there are thorns, renunciation stars. Everything’s here for us, and nothing is ours. ...