In Barton Springs

 

An issue of water from under earth
surrenders itself to light in cold arcs,
those things which by being are to emerge.

The caverns cannot hold it, dark clouds burst,
currents move inside, move aside, apart,
an issue of water from under earth.

Touching, it can do nothing but converge,
passing always to gravity, to heart,
those things which by being are to emerge.

When black flies erupt, loveless, from us all,
they will lead down through dense, rock-rooted oak,
as we follow, nude, ankles weak, thoughts slow,

white on our gray, injured faces, pall
silence between us—or sound—but not talk.
Virgins again, meeting lines of widows
on the cracked, steep trail-vein, we will intone
day—the cave at whose exit pulleys claw.

Hearing water hasten and fall across
sculpted limestone, we will crawl through thick thirst,
through tree cover, through shade to stripped sky lost,
and immerse—some diving; some cupping first
handfuls and bringing the bowl, kissed soft, up;
some stepping tenderly, swaying, pale, cursed.

Pressed between great slabs of dark rock, storms surge—
in each season’s spring the first s is sharp—
an issue of water from under earth.

Every tree, in agony, begs green birth;
Slack tides unwind and break black seas apart,
Those things which by being are to emerge.

Beneath the city’s grid of rail and dirt,
old bulbs’ rude tongues divide curtains of bark,
an issue of water from under earth,
those things which by being are to emerge.