Is the oasis still pure and cool after the wing of a dove or a falcon's shadow crosses it? Raptors have been known to dive for prey from over two hundred miles away. According to Fermat's principle, the path taken by light between two points is the shortest distance. In the shadow-theatre, sticks and bones make puppets come to life behind a cotton sheet. It's light, too, that flays their costumes of painted leather; they tremble from manipulation, in joy or rage or sorrow. Here is the girl that sits by a tree or a wall, waiting for a lion or her lover, her dark blue skirt arranged like a spell around her. And here is a hunter whose arrow pulls back before it flies into its target. A chorus delivers lines of foreknowledge. The gamelans shimmer all together; after they cease, the air is a lake of a hundred echoes.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.