Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns
A white skull
Eaten by weedy greens
Years later I
Encounter them on the road---

Words dry and riderless
The indefatigable hoof-taps
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life