Near-Eden

Above grass, scrub and sand,
above telephone poles and fences –
shapes that mass
and diverge in the air.
Some white as ice, mushrooming
in the sun; others dark
or fiery, with lilac
underbellies, or possessing
long tendrils like wandering feet.

Travellers, we watch
how between rain and sheets
of spun cloud,
the light finds its way through –
revealing a sky
eggshell or canary blue over here;
mauve or purplish blue over there.

So close above us, above miles and miles
of scrub and grass;
above telephone wires and fences,
shapes that merge, unravel,
return to the formlessness
from which they arose.

An ancient river in our bodies
answers to such purity,
a purity before which, if they exist,
the gods would stop, would consent
to be extinguished,
just to bear witness as we do now –
drinking in, between horizon
and horizon – a sky remaking itself, endlessly.

- Eduard Burle