Songline of Dawn/ We are ascending through the dawn the sky blushed with the fever of attraction. I don’t want to leave my daughter, or the babies. I can see their house, a refuge in the dark near the university. Protect them, oh gods of the scarlet light who love us fiercely despite our acts of stupidity our utter failings. May this morning light be food for their bones, for their spirits dressed in manes of beautiful black hair in skins the color of the earth as it meets the sky. Higher we fly over the valley of monster bones left scattered in the dirt to remind us that breathing is rooted somewhere other than the lungs. My spirit approaches with reverence because it harbors the story, of how these beloveds appeared to fail then climbed into the sky to stars of indigo. And we keep going past the laughter and tears of the babies who will grow up to become a light field just beyond us. And then the sun breaks over the yawning mountain. And the plane shivers as we dip toward an old volcanic field. It is still smoldering motivated by the love of one deity for another. It’s an old story and we’re in it so deep we have become them. The sun leans on one elbow after making love, savoring the wetlands just off the freeway. We are closer to the gods than we ever thought possible. A MAP TO THE NEXT WORLD (W.W. Norton, 2000)