St. John’s Bible, May 2005

Each twist of bird and clover winds so cunningly
into a sheen of wing and figured leaf. Indigo,
ground lapis lazuli, dark ochre, cochineal bleed
across each page; so worlds are wrung,
with a deft touch of wolf's hair, into this tiny Eden.
It's enough to make us forget the late spring
snow outside, the slippery pavement and faintly
flowering bush. Here is a secret refuge.
For Adam and Eve everything, everything waits
on their pleasure—light, darkness, and dazzling color,
the curve of hand on hip or breast. At night the fields
whisper with hidden life; they take the cool
of the evening in sweet-smelling bowers, neither
looking forward nor back to the time before creation.
The tree-line shivers with their every indrawn breath.