By the river dining in a warm moon rise light,
looking at you blend into the flowered green lawn,
I wonder at your beauty in this great hour,
and feel so humbled by the food, the music, and by you.
From an ancient text, or from my mind, images of discovery connect
and unwind in small electric crinkles between sight and word.
And the alchemist studied the stalk of the tiger lily,
held it to the light, brushed its petals
with a sparrow feather, and watched as the pollen
sparkled and burst in blue-orange flashes
on the marble table.
From the right a waiter enters and offers Pomeral and bluefin tartar,
chopsticks clicking, and the slaw, the slaw..did it need the mango?
A trout skips over the stones beneath the Paces Ferry Bridge.
I gather in the flavors of whiskey scallops,
daikon and watercress, and I look down at your
legs stretched long and curving in the black
constellations of your evening dress,
and I thank a hundred gods for this full moment.
Shaking the tiger lily into rippling mercury and malachite
the alchemist sees a golden beetle rising from the ore.
The distant taste of lavender and ginger on our lips, on our lips touching.
And the jade on your chest pulses heart beats
I wish were mine. And we move our conversation
into a future shared. Just like the sweet ices
and creams of dessert, we savor and enrichen
all the past that combines into what we are.
Pantherish and priestly the alchemist beats the petals
from gold to angel to plumes of diamond in his palms.
Incantations, experience, struggle and flow,
flowers and metals into gold,
such is the aria, the formula, and the perfect day,
perfect time and perfect motions, yes in every way.
And the waiter comes between us to see our finished china,
and not so suddenly I see how it is that through this year
we came not to touch and run, we came here to become.
We did not come to touch and run, we came here to become.
