The Light in the Water

Birthday Moon, Whidbey Island: Diana Rico (2005)

The Light on the Water
by Judith Arcana

(always, writers say, the light on the water

shines like diamonds, shines like gold

but the truth is that gold, and that diamonds

want only to shine like the light on the water)

Just now, on the early morning river
every spangle is a bird
flashing tiny wings of light;

the sun has thrown a sheet of hammered gold

over the slow skin of the dawn river;

a raft of light turns on dark water
tethered to the boat dock

moving with the river.

And I, waking here,

dreamed the sun falling down in the ocean

light in the heart of the sea

fire at the heart of the sea

my heart is on fire in the water

light burns in the heart of the sea

sea water skin on the body of sunset

sunset a fire at the watery edge of the world

fire all there at the edge of the world

burning the skin of the water

wet sand a mirror for fire in the water

sunset a tipped bowl of flame

I ask myself, again

Can I be in love with the light on the water? so in love that
I long for that light on the top of a mountain,

and in the prairie need to touch it with my eyes?
In forest the light comes pouring all down, gilding a pool

where sun finds a break in the trees and I, mouth open
lips burning, kneel blinded inside the blaze.
I yearn for the liquid full moon, running silk silver all night
crave lightning on through the wash of the rain

weep at stars that tip waves in the lake
I want to see fireclouds up in the sky
their waterhearts pierced by the sun,
to drown through geometry gleaming in light

on the floor of a sunstruck pond.

Now again sun falls into ocean, moon rises out in far sky
they stream to me, here on the shore

light shivers the water, goldsilver crosses the sky
crosses the world, this whole world coming to me
the shivering glimmering path leads to me

just here to my face, to my feet

moons and suns rising and falling in water
light falling here into love.




Judith Arcana's website
Diana Rico HOLY WATERS a blog about diving into the numinous

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY 2011