walking through a road one mid morning
I paused between memory and memory
to scan every footsore straggled in the dunes

across the breast of the sidewalk
buried leaves leaped to greet my eyes
I saw the leaves change faces like dresses

in the mystic rhythm of their dance
I saw my own green leaves flowering, pulsing
and I put my head down in my palm
and I gave thanks for my life
 
I picked one leaf golden brown at my feet
it was like a queen several ages ago
why are you golden brown, I asked
life, it said, made me golden brown

sometimes a barefoot thrust in a whirling dust
sometimes the smell of sun on gravel 
they all bury my hopes
they make my steps roll backwards 
through the cold through the mist
they make me golden brown

I closed the circuit and saw in my soul
all these years no bleached grass ever 
faded my steps nor did smells of crushed ants
turn away the Divine Presence
what seems like a baby  melting 
before candles is now a woman 
sure to set fire to her prayers

why am I dancing leaning close to happiness
beneath the dark sky jumping in the rain
singing like bees in a tunneled hive
while others breathe frost wondering 
why my lips join my tongue for hymns

I say thanks to the breast
whose milk watered
my thousand acre thought-fields
I say thanks to the Divine Eye 
it sings lullabies now and now to rest my soul
	
my thanks is a poem rising through heaven
sharpening constellations into bright 
clarities like sunflowers always to the Sun
like lyrics proudly sent on wings of the wind