I hold no candle to the mightiness that is you.

You, the Chariot,
the Hierophant and I am
the Moon
reversed, empty under beam.

There may be no religion
that can hold your capacity, that does
justice to your audacity as you strip
the woodlands in one blow;

the dryads died out under your plowing fingertip,
slowly drawing its way over the hills,
the meadows,
the oceans that you split like the Red Sea.

Your crown consists
of the liripipe, the laurel wreath,
a cascade of oaken brown
that belonged to a nymph,
a diadem, the heralds claim Hera once wore.

A cicada sits in your heart, dreaming of the ships.
Dreaming up the beat.

You haven’t a memory for you have no past;
the future holds you in its arms,
in a lullaby of prophecy,
you give birth,
to a nebula readying to die, you

are resting with me. No?

I have not a word for your
presence, other than
resting.

Is it I,
who can fit,
through the demijohn of a mortal frame
—ah yes a spirit
pinching.

You are the berry
that squashed into the wine
for me to drink,
and not attain it.

You plunge me out
into the black—ah goodness bright.

Not a candle I can hold against your brilliant darkness.