Posted by John Bratton on 03-04-2008 18:12
#20
Winter Gnats (Under the Dance) by Matthew Oates, 14 Feb. 2008
Gradual, beneath the dying of the day,
At the wood?s edge, sunward,
Where the world seems slowly ending,
The dance of the winter gnats ignites.
Within a shaft of ebbing sunshine,
They gather, merge, divide, reform,
Rise, gyrate, fall, ascend again,
Till all are under the solemn dance
To the unheard music of finality.
Slowly, as an evening vapour suffuses
Low over a dissolving field,
Other particles join the dance;
Myriad, minute and obscure,
Miniscule flies, living dust,
To coalesce as miasma, fade and vanish.
Then drift, spirit, drift In winterine aimlessness,
Suggesting all and everything
To dancers in the mystery of faith,
That drift into the undying,
And are seen and felt no more.
Who watched this dance, but I?
Who drew the broken trails of spider silk
In horizontal stillness from dead thistle heads,
Pointing towards some purposeful end?
But ask not: what orchestrates this dance?
By Flisteridge Wood, Upper Minety, north Wilts, Sunday January 27th & Sunday February 10th 2008
There is more similar at www.vineproject.org.uk