Poems November 2003
Horns locked into blue air, head posed to tear
a patch of forest out of its repose,
this form was hurled down by Capricorn
to match a remembered self.
Earth reshaped what it saw—fire gods hardened
the surface to a dark shine, spirits of the woods
added their whim of tree stump and branch.
Butting faint starlight above the corridor
of trees, now Capricorn barely knows
its analogue whose glance seems to admonish us,
and like a divinity looks heavenward—
we turn our backs on the earth
that shaped us, the sky of our minds
lighting the forest.
a patch of forest out of its repose,
this form was hurled down by Capricorn
to match a remembered self.
Earth reshaped what it saw—fire gods hardened
the surface to a dark shine, spirits of the woods
added their whim of tree stump and branch.
Butting faint starlight above the corridor
of trees, now Capricorn barely knows
its analogue whose glance seems to admonish us,
and like a divinity looks heavenward—
we turn our backs on the earth
that shaped us, the sky of our minds
lighting the forest.
—Colette Inez
This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 22 Number 3, on page 37
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