Sun Woman

Sun Woman

She reached her arms across the water,

hands holding twigs,

pine needles,

leaves dried on flat hot rocks,

arranged them in the dips between the hills,

lit them with embers,

watched as the clouds burned to rain,

great white islands elongating,

gray across the sky,

misting.

It came across the world with a lake which pounced again and again onto itself,

laid coolly down her face,

made grains leap up among the grasses,

teased good mushrooms,

from mossened logs,

plumpened the pale berries of the juniper.

Once there was only hot ash,

on the mountainsides,

it was finished-

day was bright,

root knobbed earth dark and useful with puddles.

It was finished.