The Edge

I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me...     But there was time...     And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss...     I do not know how long...     I could not count the hours, they ran so fast     Like little bare-foot urchins - shaking my hands away...     But I remember     Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein...     And a wind came out of the grass,     Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.     As the night grew     The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth     Fell in ashen folds about the hills,     Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them...     There must have been a spent moon,     For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver...     That too I remember...     And the tenderly rocking mountain     Silence     And beating stars...     Dawn     Lay like a waxen hand upon the world,     And folded hills     Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,     Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,     Flecked with sun,     Fine as a golden pollen -     It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.     I smelled the raw sweet essences of things,     And heard spiders in the leaves     And ticking of little feet,     As tiny creatures came out of their doors     To see God pouring light into his star...     ... It seemed life held     No future and no past but this...     And I too got up stiffly from the earth,     And held my heart up like a cup...