Finding Form

Of course this is how it must begin:

standing on any green hill

at the mercy of all blue rivers,

reinventing the colours of sky.

Three perfect ravens.

Waiting for the moon

to find a form for the planet’s giving way:

shade born out of light.

As a matter of course,

the palette gives and receives

in combinations until the body

is no longer a body.

Whisper the incantation

as it was given, as breath.

Walk around the canvas three times,

counterclockwise for luck and momentum.

Wind the world up until

it spins on spit and sweat

and the bloody pitch of a fallen

pine aware of nothing but

the first drop of rain repeating

itself—three times counterclockwise,

putting the hex on cliché: out of the blue

words fall on open fields,

plant themselves and wait

for the world to imagine itself

out of a seed or run its course like an

avalanche down a garden path

ripping up colour as it goes.