It begins with a story familiar, deciphered
in a milky swirl of light:  she stands at her window
and night has come like a curtain dropped
as it makes that beautiful arc
caught in the slipstream of its falling
the skies, the tilting dome of time  

And now, lost in the flowering of memory
with its special brand of brilliant
iteration, like a reappearing
from the friction of dream against the rough stone
light years away, beyond the veils
what the heart most desires, you’re taught to lose  

Then floods of sorrow
the key that opens every door; each entry
shifts and gathers itself once more
a space of truth blank like the sea
the stars turn, the empty
symmetry, centripetal, slowly opening
into the gullet of night  

And how she aches to break and run, be
the lifeline of a phrase tossed over the abyss
and (unimaginable) ignites
the sheath of her cocoon–everywhere
she finally slams
the ideas that freeze her this time  

It’s my turn now, followed by
Now everything is starting
the door of the dead is opened in the heart
an endlessly unfolding flower
of creation, where everything is
now everything is starting  

She almost shudders as she hears
the steady murmur of bees
the view and every syllable of sound
what multitudes it can contain  
where the moon lay, white and naked, on the pond
as hope, evanescent

And sense comes untied, a knot to lose
outside the frame is an immensity of blue
that echoes and reverberates
like larvae in the dark
and it was as if every seed
was the sound of hushed breathing
the sweet elixir of our tears—  
kindness after so much noise.  

~ Cento  created from lines of The Girl with Bees in Her Hair by Eleanor Rand Wilner