Slick obsidian panes incite the impish gurgling water
(hurled a thunder-laden mile or more by heaven's fit of pique)
to mirror some last dazzling drops of blood from Hera's dying daughter
spilled at skypool's rim through butchered clouds where shards of fire still leak
Corvid-skinned, the shadowed gables find vertiginous retreat
(or is the gloss-winged ravens' short-lived fluttering a trick of light?)
before they sleep with one eye open stretch their tails and find their feet
ready to defend against the blindly stumbling night
Below, the dripping gutter's brow on spindling trunks so far from earth
clings fast with tooth and nail to sleeping walls whose dusky bricks re-dream
those heady days when long-dead kilns had spawned their calm and ordered birth
unprepared for greatness in Victoria's mighty age of steam
Posts
