red dancer

in the wet wind
the cold
sparse scraping branches
hold the essence
of this fragile promise
this tiny
red dancer

the warning sky


swaying
with the sudden gusts

while
entirely contained
in the experience
of seeing

the soft still south
of his winter remembering

the softest paints



i could live
in this softly painted place

knowing it as
a wonder

a small magic

somewhere
to see
the world from

a slight return




you can feel
the
soft press
of spring's lips
when morning snow
kisses
a sun-warmed rock
and the lichens shiver
in the great yawning space
that has opened
like a universe
to reveal
as much of the connection
of all things
as of the distance
between our knowing
of its allness
and our experiencing
of its intimacy

~


the following text is a gift from aleks in holland.
it belongs here.
i read it and knew it immediately despite never having seen it before.
it's the story
of this image.

the mythical rain ancestor of the western arrernte people known as kantjia, of kaporilya near hermannsburg mission, is described in this western arrernte song recorded and translated by t.g.h. strehlow:

~


among the rippling waters he sits without a move,
it is kantjia himself who is sitting without a move.
moveless like a boulder he is sitting;
his hair bedewed with rain he is sitting.
on the fissured rock-plates he is sitting;
on rock-plates welling with water he is sitting.
bedrizzled with rain he sits without a move;
among the rippling waters he sits without a move.
bedrizzled with rain, a reddish glow overspreads him;
among the rippling waters a reddish glow overspreads him.
the sky is clouded with water-moss;
the sky sends down scattered showers.
over the rock-plates the flow is echoing
over the rock-plates green with moss.
moss-covered one,
spread forth your waters!’
come, moss-covered one,
pour forth your waters!’
‘come, foam-crests,
come, spread over the waters!’
‘come, drifting twigs,come, spread over the waters!’........

shimmer

silvered-ochre ripples


the river's prose


whispered
wordless
stories

unfurling

life
unfurls

shadows
in the floating world