First light observed me
like a serpent's eye,
and then,
like everything too
startling for
this world,
it ended,
and charcoal clouds
have charged in
from the West:

sky soup,
magnificent doom
or art . . .

I choose art,
and stay for the
mountains,
too beautiful
to own, but someone
does, of course,
so let them
make room for me
at the feet of God
because one day
I will come here
to die
and I will become
the mountain—
an ever-changing,
changeless saga
of defiance,

and I will move
in stillness
like the
dawn-tinged fox,
unaware of its splendor,
its unawareness
its splendor,
because beauty just is,

and I will finally believe:
there's no place to
be alone when love
is all there is,
and you are
That.

Another storm has
clothed me
in the silk of purity,
and I rehearse
my transition.

I walk through
crystal fire
and return
to the beginning
of everything.


Patricia Joan Jones