Echo

1.

The wind plays its cello in the high poplars.
Through a tunnel of leaves and light
the hunter comes
in the perfect skin of a deer.
He took it with an arrow to the eye.

The thrill of that perfection
to match his own perfection,
this hunter god
body supple as a girl’s
powerful as the fiercest bear
this hunter god
whose family opened their own throats
with flints
to praise him.

His quiver full, his bow loose
he dances through the forest
no sound among the brittle leaves.

2.

She looks and looks
a hurricane in the jelly of her eye
a jaguar spreading upwards
from her womb
to dig its claws into her heart.
One breath escapes her hot mouth

and he turns
body steaming in the cooling light
fingers rising to brush his arrow flights

“Who is there”, he calls.

The Goddess.

A thousand streams of hope
flow into her, through fingertips
and toe tips
lassoes of light
a mist of fireflies in her rising breath
joining a tidal river to find
the edges of a lost land.

She hears a cry, her own voice
sounding for the very first time.

“Who is there?”, she calls.

His fingers relax as he turns away.
She sounds again
the light now shrinking
the moment lost
slowly burning to its death
“Who is there?”, she cries, softer still.
“Who is there? Who is there?”

The hunter has moved on
coiled spring to chase a deer
leaves perfect love behind
a love he would not hear.