Swept clean By Linda Copman

Swept clean 
  
The matted earth does not resemble anything, 
smelling as it does of damp depths, of tombs,
of flowers. I breathe in its scent and the boundary
between me and the unmoving dirt dissolves. 
Somewhere far away birds call, grow weaker, 
  
And vanish, like the faces of old women who 
lay mute beneath, descending into silence
like pebbles vanish from the surface of a lake 
into a different world, in which we are blind.
The sun pierces the copse of wild vines and 
  
Sparks against leaves like diamonds, flashing 
in the deep hollows of roots, catching the fiery 
globes of pumpkins and shaking gold fans,
that flutter in uninterrupted splendor and cover 
the world in foliage until it loses all sense 
  
Of reality. Until, finally, I belong to the same 
family as the birds and trees, knowing just 
when the sun sets, where the dew hangs heaviest
as night falls, and am content to walk a little 
longer across her girth, who holds me up.  

Linda Copman is a lifelong lover of words and their power to help her connect to the world and to the other beings that dwell there.