The lake reassembles
each morning
and I can almost
believe I
put on a second life,
one with the
threadbare majesty
of stillness,
just a thin wire
of gold,
perhaps enough to
hammer out some
armor between
this wisp of knowing
and a world that
believes it
owns everything.

Swans blossoming on
a pool of secrets:
the water
isn't speaking.

Its patient blindness,
its smokey sleep,
could be
something Earthly or
something with a
bottomless life

just like ours.

There's no need for
armor when
the ground turns holy
in a drop of
forever,
when each face,
even the smallest,
is familiar,
when we are the
gold in
the undivided stream
of Being.

Two frog eyes peer
from the
cheerless water
like floating bullets
and I am watched over
by a few crows
as well.

Nothing flees in the
Temple of One
where we are safe
inside ourselves.


Patricia Joan Jones