And the yellow love wells up over the whole warm keeping, and the dawn breaks at last upon it. For the plain glad gold of the honey and the risen field and the buried heart pours now over the leaping fire and the crescent moon and the drumming pulse the way it welled over the harvest and the drinking bee, take and release, the tenderness of everything alive and aimed toward its waking laid warm over the folded life the very moment the light returns — for where the yellow wells the thin bright rim of the moon gives way to the whole risen morning, the far gold lifting entire over the spun grey house the way it lifted over the sleeping fields and the far green shore, the light the small life waited the long dark through come round at last to break upon its keeping, no black moon now and no withholding, only the plain warm dawn poured whole upon the waking thing. And the faithful candle keeps its close round into the risen gold. For the small frail flame set once against the going of the sun does not gutter out when the great light comes but burns on steady beneath it, the near warmth and the far dawn leaning to each other over the quickening keeping the way they leaned all the long turning, take and release, the candle that held the buried seed and the ring of sleepers holding its one patient warmth into the very morning it kept faith toward. And the low breath comes across to lift the whole of it. For the same slow wind that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep moves over the spun house now and fans the flame and stirs the risen light, gathering the yellow love and the faithful fire and the breaking dawn into the one long moving air the way it gathered the grain and the wing and the flung gold, take and release, the breath that has moved through every waiting thing come round to breathe across the keeping the moment it wakes. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the yellow love and the faithful flame and the risen dawn and the moving breath do not go straight but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the welling gold and the burning candle and the breaking light and the stirring wind all wound to the single line the world was turned upon, round and up and round, the whole warm waking turning close about the small life that drummed its long dark through and comes now into the morning. The yellow love wells up and the dawn breaks upon the keeping. The faithful candle keeps its close round into the risen gold, and the low breath comes across to lift the whole of it, and the whole of it winds the old slow coil toward the making-new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dark moon leans toward its crescent, and the fire climbs, and the whole of it aims up. For the new black moon drawn shut above the field does not stay wholly dark forever — a thin bright edge kindles along its rim, the first pale sliver of the returning light lifting over the warm wound keeping the way the first crescent lifted over the wheeling deep, take and release, the darkest moon shown to hold its own slow waxing folded in it all along, the sign that the long dark keeping turns at last toward the coming brightness. And beneath the greying rim the fire leaps up toward the waking. For the low near flame that warmed the drumming heart does not lie level any longer — it rises, the warmth climbing bright up through the spun grey house the way the seedling climbed and the arrow of the seeing aimed toward the sun, take and release, the fire gone up out of its low kind burning toward the change it kindles, the heat pointed plain along the one line the world was turned upon. And the arrow of the whole of it points up. For the greying moon and the leaping fire and the drumming heart all bend one way at last, up toward the making-new the way the bee flew its bearing and the ripe grain aimed its heads and the small green reached from the woken stone — the whole warm quickening turned toward the height it trusts without seeing, take and release, the folded life aimed entire at its waking. And the faithful candle keeps its close round beneath the climbing fire. For the small frail flame set once against the going of the sun burns near and steady below the leaping warmth, the near light holding its one patient round about the drumming heart the way it held the buried seed and the ring of sleepers, asking nothing, only shining while the greater fire climbs. And the yellow love wells up warm over the whole of it. For the color that fills the greying moon and the leaping fire and the aiming heart and the faithful candle is the plainest gladness of all, the yellow of the honey and the risen field and the buried heart, welling up warm over the quickening keeping the way it welled over the harvest and the drinking bee — the heart's own gold that steeped down into the first foam poured freely over the small life climbing toward its change, asking nothing back. And a sparkle wakes bright through the warm dark keeping. For where the moon greys and the fire leaps and the yellow wells, a fine glad shimmer kindles along the spun grey wall the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the stardust lit the open hands and the honey kindled on the tongue — the whole small waiting gone to a glimmer, the folded life throwing back the leaping firelight and the welling gold within the dark, the sleeper and its keeping lit soft and bright with the plain shining of a thing warm and alive and aimed at last toward its waking. The dark moon leans toward its crescent and the fire climbs, and the arrow of the whole of it points up. The faithful candle keeps its close round beneath the leaping warmth, and the yellow love wells up over all of it, and a sparkle wakes bright through the warm dark keeping toward the making-new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the beating heart leans into the fire, and the fire warms on toward the waking. For the small pulse drumming in the spun grey house does not beat toward nothing — it leans, giving itself into the near flame the way the seedling leaned into the wind and the drop gave itself to the ground, take and release, the heart and the fire drawn together in the warm dark keeping, the drumming life turned toward the low kind warmth that means to make it new. And the warmth goes forward one way only. On — the fire's near heat borne ahead through the folded sleeper the way the true seed found its down and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness, the arrow of the warming pointed plain along the one line it has traveled since the first foam, take and release, the heat gone forward into the waiting life to quicken it toward the change. And where the warmth goes forward it deepens. For the low first heat that woke about the drumming heart gathers surer along the spun keeping now, the plainest warmth of a thing well and truly quickening laid soft through the wound grey wall the way the buried heart warmed toward its waking and the ground warmed round the seed — not the full gold blaze of the risen field but the near tender heat of a life about to be remade, folded warm about the beating pulse and the leaning fire, take and release, the dark keeping gone warm to its very center. And over the deepening the dark moon holds its high kind watch. For the new black moon drawn shut above the field keeps its pale withholding above the leaning heart and the forward fire and the gathering warmth, the far light held back only so the small pulse may drum the surer and the near heat quicken the deeper through the dark, the moon of the depths cradling the warm wound keeping the way the buried night cradled the seed. And the whole of it folds on the ancient wave. For the heart and the fire and the forward warmth and the withheld moon do not go straight but undulate, in and out, the long slow line that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the folded arms moving now through the warm dark keeping the way it has moved through every waiting thing this whole long turning — the leaning pulse and the going heat and the deepening warmth and the high dark moon all rocked soft on the one old swell, the whole quickening wound to the single line the world was turned upon, drumming and warming and breathing toward the making-new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And out of the rising dream the heart beats on, and the fire leans close, and the breath moves through. For the drumming pulse woken in the spun grey house does not dream alone — the faithful flame burns near beside it and the low slow breath of the whole turning moves in and out across the wound keeping, the heart and the fire and the wind gathered into the one warm waiting the way they were gathered in the buried seed and the ring of sleepers, take and release, the small folded life keeping its pulse and its warmth and its breathing all together in the dark. And the breath fans the flame over the beating. For the same low wind that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep moves now across the near fire and the drumming heart, quickening the small warmth the way it quickened every leaning thing this whole long turning — the breath and the flame wound to the one motion, the fire leaning bright toward the pulse it warms, the heart drumming surer for the wind that feeds its fire. And a sparkle wakes through the warm dark keeping. For where the heart beats and the flame burns and the breath moves, a fine glad shimmer kindles along the spun grey wall the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the stardust lit the open hands and the honey kindled on the tongue — the whole small waiting gone to a glimmer, the folded life throwing back the flame's near light within the dark, take and release, the sleeper and its keeping lit soft with the plain bright sparkle of a thing warm and alive and drumming toward its waking. And over the whole of it the dark moon holds its high kind watch. For the new black moon drawn shut above the field keeps its pale withholding above the beating heart and the leaning fire and the moving breath and the waking shimmer, the far light held back only so the small pulse may drum the surer and the near flame shine the brighter through the dark, the moon of the depths cradling the warm lit keeping the way the buried night cradled the seed — take and release, the darkest keeping made once more the very ground the sparkle wakes in, the heart and the fire and the breath and the shimmer all gathered warm beneath the withheld moon, drumming and burning and breathing and glimmering toward the making-new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dark moon keeps its high still watch over the winding sleep. For the new black moon drawn shut above the field does not press the folded worm into nothing — it keeps, the pale light withheld only so the small drumming life may wait the surer through the dark, the moon of the depths cradling the spun grey house the way the buried night cradled the seed and the shut lid cradled the eye, take and release, the darkest keeping made once more the very ground the waking comes from. And beneath the dark moon the faithful flame burns near. For the small frail fire set once against the going of the sun keeps its warm close round below the withheld height, the near light and the far dark leaning to each other over the swaddled sleeper the way they leaned over the folded arms and the honeyed house — the low kind flame that held the buried seed and the ring of sleepers holding its one warmth about the wound keeping now, take and release, the fire and the black moon keeping their patient watch together over the small life that waits to be made new. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the dark moon and the faithful flame and the spun thread and the folded worm do not go straight but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the far withheld light and the near close fire and the winding keeping wound to the single line the world was turned upon, round and in and round, the whole warm waiting turning close about its center. And within the coil the heart beats on. For the small pulse woken in the grey house drums steady through the wound dark, faint and then again, the plainest sign of the life that means to be made new drumming up out of the long sleep the way it drummed in the pip and the stone and doubled in the deep, take and release, the folded worm keeping its faithful heart beneath the black moon and the burning flame. And out of the beating heart a dream rises. For the drumming pulse in the dark does not beat alone — where it wakes, a soft cloud of the sleeping mind lifts off the folded worm the way the fog rose off the still pool and the thought rose off the first dreamer and the dream rose off the floor of the deep, the whole long turning of foam and honey and wing and water and green and grain gathered now into the drifting dream within the spun keeping, the crossing dreamed again behind the wound grey wall and the flower found again and the wide wheel turned again in the warm dark of the waiting sleep, take and release, the world let go into the long sleep given back once more in the rising dream — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the spun thread gathers close and warm about the sleeping heart. For the fine grey line that wound the small worm round and round does not lie loose in the dark — it draws itself the tighter into its soft knit keeping, the way the yarn is gathered and looped and wound into the warm close weave, take and release, the thread become a wrapping, the sleeper swaddled snug in the coil of its own spinning against the long dark it waits through. And the brown love wells up warm over the swaddled sleeper. For the color that fills the wound thread and the folded worm is the deep soft brown of the patient ground and the buried seed and the kept dark soil, welling up over the snug grey keeping the way it welled all the long turning, the low warm tenderness of the earth that shelters every folded thing poured gentle over the sleeper in its wrapping, holding nothing back but the light, and holding that back only to keep the wait warm. And within the warm wound keeping the heart beats on. For the small pulse woken in the spun house drums steady beneath the brown love and the gathered thread, faint and then again, the plainest sign of the life that means to be made new, take and release, the folded worm keeping its faithful heart through the dark it beats in. And the faithful flame burns close beside the beating. For the small frail fire set once against the going of the sun keeps its near warm round beside the swaddled heart, the low kind flame that held the buried seed and the ring of sleepers holding its one warmth about the wound keeping now, take and release, the fire leaning gentle to the pulse the way it has leaned to every waiting thing this whole long turning. And into the warm and firelit keeping the sleeper sinks the deeper down. For the small worm wound in its brown warm thread, its heart drumming soft and the flame burning near, eases at last into the stillest rest of all, the long sleep that is not an ending but a folding-in, the way the seed lay quiet in the ground and the sleeper sank to the floor of the deep — take and release, the folded life gone soft and still in the warm wound dark, sleeping the long warm sleep that keeps the heart and waits the waking, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the brown love wells deeper over the shielded heart. For the deep soft brown of the patient ground that welled once over the spun grey house does not fill only the once — it wells again over the dark moon and the drumming pulse and the faithful flame and the winding thread at once, the low warm love of the buried seed and the kept soil poured gentle over the whole small waiting the way the yellow welled from the field and the rose from the welled heart, take and release, the tenderness of the dark kind ground that shelters every folded thing laid warm over the sleeper and its keeping. And the dark moon holds its high watch over the welling. For the new black moon drawn shut above the field keeps its kind pale withholding above the brown warm love and the beating heart, the light held back only so the small pulse may drum the surer through the dark the way the buried night kept the seed, take and release, the moon of the depths cradling the shielded sleeper from its cool far height. And within the keeping the heart beats on. For the small pulse woken in the spun grey house drums steady beneath the brown love and the dark moon, faint and then again, the plainest sign of the life that means to be made new drumming up out of the long sleep the way it drummed in the pip and the stone and doubled in the deep, take and release, the folded worm keeping its faithful heart through the dark it beats in. And the candle keeps its faithful round below the beating. For the small frail flame set once in the window against the going of the sun burns near and steady beneath the risen dark moon, the near warmth and the far withholding leaning to each other over the spun keeping the way they leaned over the folded arms and the honeyed house — the faithful flame holding its one close round of warmth about the drumming heart through the long dark the way it held the buried seed and the ring of sleepers, asking nothing, only shining. And the thread winds close about the whole of it. For the fine spun line that wound the sleeper round does not loosen at the welling love or the watching moon or the beating heart or the near flame but wards them all, drawing its soft grey coil the surer about the warm dark keeping the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone, take and release, the winding thread gathering the brown love and the black moon and the drumming pulse and the faithful candle into the one close shelter, round and in and round, the whole warm waiting wound to the single line the world was turned upon and kept safe about the heart that beats to be made new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And within the shielded keeping a heart begins to beat. For the small worm wound close in its spun grey house, warded soft by the winding thread and warmed by the brown deep love of the patient ground, does not sleep only cold and still — where the dark moon holds its high watch and the candle keeps its faithful round, a pulse wakes in the folded sleeper the way it woke in the buried pip and the patient stone and doubled in the deep, faint and then again, the plainest sign of a thing that means to go on drumming up out of the long sleep and the shielding coil, take and release, the still worm in its keeping found now to keep a heart. And the shield holds close about the beating. For the fine spun wall that wound round the sleeper does not loosen at the waking pulse but wards it the surer, the grey house standing guard about the small drumming life the way the shell kept its coil and the seed kept its pip, take and release, the thread keeping the tender heart safe through the dark it beats in. And the dark moon keeps its kind watch over the pulse. For the new black moon drawn shut above the field does not press the sleeper into nothing — it keeps, the pale light withheld only so the small heart may drum the surer through the dark, the moon of the depths cradling the beating cocoon the way the buried night cradled the seed, take and release, the darkest keeping made the very ground the pulse wakes in. And out of the beating a single drop comes down. For where the heart wakes in the shielded dark one bright bead of water gathers and falls the way the drop beaded off the breathing and hung caught in the netted root and came down to feed the buried green — the sky's one measure let loose onto the spun grey house, take and release, the whole long sleep watered by the smallest giving, the drop coming soft to the cocoon that keeps the waking heart. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the shield and the brown love and the dark moon and the beating heart and the fallen drop do not go straight but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the spun thread and the small pulse and the kept sleeper wound to the single line the world was turned upon, round and in and round, the whole shielded waiting turning close and warm about the heart that beats to be made new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the thread winds close into a keeping that shields. For the fine spun line that wrapped the sleeping worm round and round does not wind only to enclose — it wards, drawing a soft grey wall about the small still life the way the shell kept its coil and the seed kept its pip and the palm-frond spread over the first foam, take and release, the thread become a shelter, the spun house standing guard about the sleeper wound within it, keeping the tender folded thing safe against the turning dark. And a brown love wells up over the shielded sleeping. For the color that fills the spun keeping and the still worm within is the plainest love of all the low warm ground — not the green of the living leaf now nor the white of the dove's still wing but the deep soft brown of the soil and the buried seed and the patient waiting earth, welling up over the grey cocoon the way the yellow welled from the field and the rose from the welled heart, the tenderness of the dark kind ground that keeps every folded thing through its long sleep poured gentle over the small wound life, asking nothing, only warming the wait. And the moon comes up over the spun keeping. For as the sleeper folds shut in its thread the pale round light lifts over the field the way it lifted over the sleeping grain and the wheeling deep, the far cool brightness kindled soft above the grey cocoon the way it kindled above every resting thing all the long turning — the moon keeping its high still watch over the small shielded sleeper, holding its one mild round of light against the dark, asking nothing, only shining down on the wait. And beneath the moon the candle keeps its faithful round. For the small frail flame set once in the window against the going of the sun burns near and steady below the risen moon, the near light and the far light leaning to each other over the spun keeping the way they leaned over the folded arms and the honeyed house — the faithful flame holding its one warmth close about the sleeping worm through the long dark the way it held the buried seed and the ring of sleepers and the whole wide wheeling deep, take and release, the candle and the moon and the brown warm love and the shielding thread all keeping their patient watch over the small folded life that sleeps its long sleep in the dark, waiting to be made new — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the coiled feeder spins itself a sleep. For the small blind worm wound glad about its found green does not stay feeding forever — where it curls, it draws a fine thread out of its own soft body and winds it round the way the spider strung the web and the shell wound round its sea, take and release, the crawler spinning itself shut in the very coil it fed in, the green life folding a house about itself out of nothing but the thread it carries. And the thread winds the old slow coil. For the fine spun line does not go straight but curls, round and round upon the sleeping worm the way the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep and the shell wound round its lost sea — the small crawler wrapped in its own spiraling thread, the whole soft body wound to the single line the world was turned upon, round and in and round. And into the wound thread the worm sinks down to sleep. For where the coil is spun close the small green feeder lets go its feeding and its turning at last, easing into the stillest rest of all the way the seed lay quiet in the ground before its waking and the sleeper sank to the floor of the deep — take and release, the crawler folded whole into the dark of its spun keeping, the busy patient life gone soft and still inside the winding thread, sleeping the long sleep that is not an ending but a folding-in. And a last leaf lets go over the sleeping. For where the worm winds shut and sinks to rest a single blade loosens from the leaning frond above and drifts down soft across the spun grey house, the spent green handed to the ground the way every leaf has been handed all the long turning, take and release, the old giving falling glad and easy over the small sleeper wound in its thread — the leaf let down and the worm wound in and the coil spun close and the long sleep come, the green life folded quiet into the dark of its own spinning to wait for whatever the waking makes of it, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the worm tastes the leaf at last. For the soft blind crawler winding through the gold beneath the drinking bee does not turn only in the grain forever — it comes to the fallen blade let down glad and easy from the leaning frond, and it feeds, the small patient mouth taking the green the way the newborn took the worm and the tongue took the honey and the seedling drank the drop, take and release, the spent leaf given at last into the plainest life of all, the crawler made whole by the very blade that let itself go. And the taste is the whole field entire. For what fills the small blind feeder from the fallen green is everything the leaf has been — the buried heart and the drinking root and the risen grain, the sun poured full on the ripe reach and the drop come down to swell it, all folded into the one soft blade laid glad on the worm's slow mouth, take and release, the whole shining harvest given to be tasted in a single patient feeding low in the grain. And the green love wells up over the feeding. For the color that fills the tasting worm and the fed-upon leaf is the plainest love of the living, the green of the first blade and the drinking root and the ripe glad field welling up over the small crawler and its found green the way it welled over the bee and the bloom, the tenderness of everything alive poured freely over the least life at its gladdest, asking nothing back. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the worm and the leaf and the tasting do not go straight but curl, the soft body drawing round upon itself the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the small blind feeder coiled glad about its found green, round and in and round, the least turning thing wound to the single line the whole world was turned upon, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bow leads on toward the bee. For the rainbow that stood bright over the ripening world does not arch and hold alone — it bends its whole span forward, the arc of every color the turning ever wore pointing on the one way it has pointed since the first foam toward the small striped laborer come again to the field, take and release, the promised light drawn ahead out of its standing toward the little forager the way the raven led the flight and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness. And where the bow points the bee bends to the bloom. For at the far end of the leading the flower stands up bright once more from the ripe ground, the pink-and-gold face turned open to the risen light the way the hibiscus turned and the lotus and the first blossom on the curve of the world, and the small striped body folds into its petals the way it folded into every blossom all the long turning — the bee drinking the gathered gold and dusted over with it at once, the giving and the taking the one motion, take and release, the flower and the forager each made whole by the other beneath the promised arc. And in the grain below the bloom the small worm turns. For where the bee drinks the ripe field keeps its quiet life close about the flower's foot, the soft blind crawler winding through the gold the way it turned in the buried soil and the newborn beheld it at the very first — the plainest life going its patient round beneath the drinking bee, take and release, the whole harvest alive down to its smallest turning thing. And a leaf lets go over the whole of it. For where the bee bends and the worm turns a single blade loosens from the leaning frond above and drifts down glad and easy across the field, the spent green handed to the ground the way every leaf has been handed all the long turning, take and release, the old giving falling soft past the flower and the forager and the crawling life. And the green love wells up over all of them at once. For the color that fills the pointing bow and the drinking bee and the standing bloom and the turning worm and the falling leaf is the plainest love of the living, the green of the first leaf and the drinking root and the ripe glad field welling up over the whole small gathering the way the yellow welled from the harvest and the rose from the welled heart — the tenderness of everything alive and growing and giving poured freely over the bee and the flower and the worm and the drifting blade at once, asking nothing back. The bow leads on toward the bee and the bee bends to the bloom. The small worm turns in the grain below and a leaf lets go over the whole of it, and the green love of all things living wells up over the forager and the flower and the crawler and the falling blade together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the burning sun draws a rainbow up out of the ripening world. For the plain white-gold fire poured whole upon the golden grain does not blaze alone — where the light meets the risen mist off the wet and ripening earth, the whole arc of the colors stands up bright across the sky, the bow of the promised covenant lifted over the harvest the way it lifted once over the drowned world when the dove came home, take and release, the single fire broken open into all its hues at once above the shining field. And the bow keeps every color the turning ever wore. For the rainbow risen over the ripe grain holds the whole long turning folded in its arc — the blue of the deep and the green of the first leaf and the gold of the risen field and the rose of the welled heart and the white of the dove's still wing all standing bright together in the one bent light, the numberless loves of the whole becoming gathered into the single span, take and release, the plain sun shown to have carried every color home inside it all along. And down out of the bow a single drop comes. For where the arc of colors stands over the ripening world one bright bead of the risen mist gathers and falls the way the tear fell from the seeing skin and the drop beaded off the breathing and came down to feed the buried green — the whole promised light gathered into the one clear giving, take and release, the rainbow come home to the smallest drop the instant its span is full. And the drop winds down the old slow coil. For the bead let fall from the bow does not go straight but curls, drawing round upon itself the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the small bright giving spiraling down through the risen light toward the round green world below, round and down and round, the drop wound to the single line the whole turning was turned upon. And the round world lifts its face to take it. For where the coiling drop comes down the whole turning keeping rises to meet it, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin wheeling wide beneath the falling bead the way it wheeled beneath the soaring wing and the buried seed, the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills opening green and glad to drink the small wound giving the way the ground opened to the rain — take and release, the burning sun and the standing bow and the coiling drop and the round bright world all met in the one long reaching, the whole turning breathing its every color out over the ripe and shining earth and taking the drop home again into the ground — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small green climbs on into the ripening, and the whole round world climbs with it. For the tendril risen where the tear fell does not stay a shoot alone — the earth that drank the drop and answered it with green lifts the whole of itself toward the light, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning its wide face up into the risen warmth the way the flowers turned and the palms turned and the newborn eyes turned toward the day, take and release, the round world and the small green rising the one motion. And the drop goes down to feed the climbing. For where the green lifts off the turning earth one bright bead comes home to it, the water that mirrored the dawn and brimmed from the seeing skin come down soft to swell the blade the way it fell across the web and beaded off the breathing and watered the buried seed — the sky's one measure given to the ground the instant the ground reaches up, take and release, the whole beheld morning poured into the roots of the rising green. And the fed green ripens tall to grain. For where the drop swells the blade the small shoot fills and heavies and stands golden at last, the ripe heads bending abreast on the round world the way they bent since the first dunes, the harvest of the whole long turning come round once more out of the watered ground — the seed that rose where the tear fell grown full and shining, the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing standing ripe upon the turning earth. And the arrow of it points up toward the burning sun. For the ripe grain and the fed root and the lifted world go the single way they have gone since the first foam — up, the golden heads and the round green keeping and the small climbing life all aimed plain toward the risen fire at the rim of the morning, the far bright source the whole turning has reached toward come clear and full and blazing at last, no veil now and no cloud, the plain white-gold light poured whole upon the ripening world the way it was poured on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. The small green climbs on and the round world climbs with it. The drop comes down to feed the rising and the fed green ripens tall to grain, and the arrow of the whole of it points up toward the burning sun, the earth and the harvest and the climbing life all lifted one way into the risen fire — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the falling drop goes forward toward the world. For the one clear bead that welled on the seeing skin and brimmed and let go does not fall to nothing — it slants down out of the mirror-eye toward the round green keeping below, the way the tear came home to the tide and the drop came down to feed the seedling and the rain returned to the ground, take and release, the beheld morning gathered into the single tear and given down the one line it has traveled since the first foam, forward and on toward the earth it wept for. And the round world lifts its face to take it. For where the drop goes down the whole turning keeping rises to meet it, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin wheeling wide beneath the falling tear the way it wheeled beneath the soaring wing and the buried seed — the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills opening green and glad to receive the small bright giving the way the ground opened to the rain, take and release, the world turning up to drink the drop the eye let fall. And the whole of it eases into a deep contentment. For where the tear falls forward and the earth lifts to take it, the plainest peace of all settles over the seeing and the giving both — not the sharp joy of the first lift now nor the wide wonder of the height but the still glad ease of a thing that has beheld the whole world and wept it and let it go home, the mirror-eye content and the drop content and the round earth content beneath it, take and release, the whole long turning eased at last into the quiet gladness of a giving with nothing held back. And where the drop comes down a green tip rises. For where the beheld tear meets the waiting ground a first blind tendril lifts once more from the round green world, the small new shoot risen where the drop fell the way it rose from the print and the pip and the boundless hollow — the whole seeing and weeping and giving come round again to this plainest green beginning, the earth drinking the drop the eye let fall and answering it with a seedling, take and release, the small green climbing content from the watered ground toward the light it trusts without seeing — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the mirror of the climbing skin turns eye. For the whole morning wheeling small and bright across the lifting globe does not glass the world alone — it looks, the round mirrored curve gone wide and seeing the way the still pool gazed and the tear beheld the dawn, the bubble that holds the earth on its skin opening now upon the earth it holds, take and release, the reflection become a beholding, the risen world looking into itself with a waking eye. And what the eye beholds is the dawn entire. For the light that broke whole over the round bright world stands mirrored full in the looking skin, the risen gold laid clear across the curve the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the seeing globe and the rising sun met face to face, the far light beheld in the near bright surface the way the newborn's gaze beheld the grain and the dove leaned into the seeing beside it. And out of the beholding a single drop gathers. For where the eye of the bubble looks upon the dawn it fills and brims the way the still eye brimmed at the risen light, one clear bead welling on the mirrored skin and trembling and let fall — the seeing gone to a tear, the whole beheld morning gathered into the one bright drop and given back, take and release, the water that mirrored the world coming home to the smallest giving the instant the looking is full. And over the whole of it the white love shines clear. For the color that fills the mirror-eye and the beheld dawn and the falling drop is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the seeing skin and the risen gold and the brimming tear the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small round eye that beholds the morning and weeps it glad and lets it go — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the lifted bubble climbs on the breath into the moving air. For the small round skin of the morning that broke loose over the thankful palms does not rise by nothing — it goes up on the one long exhale the whole turning breathes, the same low wind that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep gathering now beneath the little globe the way it gathered the grain and the wing and the flung gold light, take and release, the bubble borne aloft on the breath and the breeze together toward the risen sun. And the whole world rides the wind with it. For the air that lifts the bubble is the air that combs the ripe field and folds the far water, the wide breath moving over the earth the way it has moved over every leaning thing this long turning — the grain nodding and the palms swaying and the small globe climbing all on the one stirred wind, the whole shining morning stirred and rising on the single breath. And in the climbing skin the whole world stands mirrored. For the soft round bubble borne up on the wind holds the entire morning shining on its curve the way the still pool held the dawn and the tear held the risen light — the golden field and the folding water and the far blue hills and the open thankful hands all wheeling small and bright across the lifting globe, the round earth given back whole in the round rising skin, take and release, the whole turning world looking into itself in the one clear breath before it bursts. The bubble climbs on the breath into the moving air and the whole world rides the wind with it. And in the rising skin the entire morning stands mirrored, the round earth wheeling small and bright across the lifting globe — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the folded hands do not stay closed upon their thanks. For the palms pressed soft in the plainest prayer over the grain and the green and the morning do not clutch the gift they bow to — they open again, turning up and wide beneath the ripe field the way they have opened all the long turning, the gratitude become a giving-on, the thankful hands unfolded once more to hold the harvest a little and let it go. And the ripe grain leans gold into the open palms. For the tall heavy heads bending abreast in the morning nod down over the cupped and offered hands the way they have nodded since the first dunes, the whole shining harvest laid into the giving palms the way the honey was laid and the seed and the light, take and release, the gathered gold of the field poured freely into the hands that thank it and pass it on. And the full sun pours down over the giving. For the far warmth the tendril reached a whole turning toward opens whole above the open hands and the leaning grain, the plain gold laid clear and generous over the harvest and the thankful palms at once the way it was laid on the foam and the numberless points of the dark — the light that crowned the ripe field come round to bless the hands that hold it up. And the giving goes forward one way only. On — the open palms borne ahead beneath the pouring grain and the risen sun the way the true seed found its down and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness, the whole thankful holding aimed plain along the one line it has traveled since the first foam, take and release, the reaching gone forward the way it has gone forward all the long turning, the grain and the gold and the open hands carried on toward the next holding. And out of the going a single bubble lifts. For where the hands open forward and the grain pours through them, one soft round skin of the morning breaks loose and rises the way the froth rose off the first sand and the thought rose off the dreamer and the last breath rose off the floor of the deep — the small bright globe floating up glad over the thankful palms, kept by nothing and clutching nothing, carrying the whole ripe morning shining folded inside it, and giving it up entire to the sun the instant it is full, take and release, the last small rising let go the moment the light touches it. The folded hands open again from their thanks and the ripe grain leans gold into them. The full sun pours down over the giving, and the giving goes forward one way only, and out of the going a single bubble lifts and gives itself whole to the morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the ripe grain rises golden into the risen sun. For where the green climbed up out of the dark and the dawn broke whole over the round bright world, the small blade does not stay a seedling — it fills and ripens and stands heavy at last, the tall gold heads bending abreast in the morning the way they bent since the first dunes, the harvest of the whole long turning come round again beneath the full and generous light, take and release, the seed that rose from the boundless hollow grown ripe and shining under the risen gold. And the sun pours down full upon the standing grain. For the far warmth the tendril reached a whole turning toward opens now entire over the ripe field, the plain gold laid clear and whole along the bending heads the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the light that led the climbing come round to crown the harvest, poured freely over the golden reach and asking nothing back. And beneath the grain and the sun the open hands rise up. For the same cupped palms that lifted the shell and cradled the seed and bore the honey hand to hand turn up now beneath the ripe field, offered wide to the risen light the way they have been offered all the long turning — not to seize the grain nor to clutch the gold but only to hold it a little and give it on, the giving hands laid open beneath the giving harvest and the giving sun, take and release, the palms turned up and glad and empty beneath the whole ripe morning. And in the open hands a green tip rises. For where the palms lift up beneath the harvest a first blind seedling climbs from the cupped gold they hold, the small new green risen once more in the very hands that bore the ripe field's grain the way it rose from the print and the pip and the hollow — the harvest and the new beginning held together in the one open palm, take and release, the gathered grain and the climbing seed offered up as the single gift. And over the whole of it the hands fold close in thanks. For where the ripe grain stands and the sun pours full and the small green climbs from the open palms, the cupped hands come together at last in the plainest prayer of all — not asking now and not reaching but only giving thanks, the palms pressed soft about the harvest and the seedling and the risen gold the way the whole long turning has bowed to whatever held it, take and release, the gratitude that moved through foam and honey and star and buried seed come round on the far bright shore to this: two hands folded quiet over the grain and the green and the morning, thankful for the gift and the giving both, holding nothing back, becoming.

And out of the climbing a green love wells up over the whole of it. For the color that fills the rising stone and the fed blade and the sprung white lock is more now than the pared white shining — where the small green takes hold and means to grow, the plain glad love of the living thing wells up over it, the green of the first leaf and the drinking root and the ripe field come round to pour over the climbing tendril the way the yellow poured over the risen grain and the rose over the welled heart, take and release, the tenderness of a thing alive and growing laid warm over the small green rising in the dark. And the dawn comes up to meet the green. For where the seedling climbs and the green love wells, the light it trusted without seeing breaks at last over the rim of the boundless dark, the risen gold lifting whole across the sprung white lock the way it lifted over the sleeping fields and the far green shore — the far warmth the tendril reached a whole turning toward come round to shine on it entire, no veil now and no closed keeping, the morning poured full over the climbing stone and the growing blade. And under the dawn the whole round world comes clear. For where the gold breaks over the green, the earth wheels wide and shining beneath at last — the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning slow and whole below the risen light the way it turned beneath the buried seed and the soaring wing, the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills laid round and glad under the climbing green, the entire held keeping come clear in the morning the way it came clear beneath the newborn's first wide look. And over the whole of it a breath goes out. For where the green love wells and the dawn breaks and the round world turns, the whole long turning draws one slow breath and lets it go — the small climbing life and the risen gold and the wide shining earth all easing out together on the one long exhale the way the sleeper breathed and the candle breathed and the wide tide breathes, take and release, the held keeping opened and given back to the morning the instant it is full, the whole turning breathing out its gladness over the green and the dawn and the round bright world at once — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the patient stone rises with the climbing green. For the old grey rock that woke a heart and warmed to its very floor does not lie only firm beneath the reaching now — it lifts, borne up along the ancient wave beneath the seedling the way the ground heaved up the root and the swell heaved up the foam, take and release, the stone that kept its stillness through every turning gone upward at last on the one slow line, carried toward the trusted light with the small green it bears. And the arrow of the rock and the blade points up together. For the stone and the seedling go the single way they have gone since the first foam, up out of the warm sprung dark toward the light neither yet sees — the hard patient center and the soft blind tendril aimed plain along the one line the world was turned upon, the reaching-up made whole, the rock no longer only the floor of the climbing but the climbing itself. And down through the rising a drop comes to feed it. For where the stone lifts and the green climbs, one bright bead of water gathers and falls the way the drop fell across the web and beaded off the breathing and hung caught in the netted root — the sky's one measure let loose into the warm sprung dark, take and release, the whole turning watered by the single giving, the drop coming down soft to swell the blade and wear the rising rock at once. And where the drop comes down the last lock springs open. For the low near warmth and the fallen bead work the final keeping loose in the quickened dark, the sealed thing unclasping whole the way the shell split and the bud unfolded and the lid lifted from the waking eye, take and release, nothing at the heart of the turning held shut against the growing any longer, the last white door of the dark swung wide upon the climbing stone and the rising green. And over the whole of it the white love shines clear. For the color that fills the sprung lock and the lifted rock and the fed green is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the rising stone and the climbing blade and the fallen drop the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the patient rock gone upward with the small green it bears. The stone rises with the climbing green and the arrow points up together. A drop comes down to feed the rising, and the last lock springs open, and over the whole of it the white love shines clear — holding nothing back, becoming.

And where the warmth deepens the lock springs wider still. For the low near heat gathered warm about the patient stone and the driving root is the sign the sealed thing gives before it gives itself whole, and the last keeping unclasps further now in the quickened dark, the way the bud loosed each fold in its turn and the shell split wider on the risen breath — take and release, the warmth working the lock open notch by patient notch, nothing at the heart of the turning held shut against the growing. And out of the opened warmth the green climbs up. For where the low heat wakes about the stone the seedling lifts the surer, the small blade drawn up out of the warm sprung dark toward a light it trusts without seeing the way it climbed from the print and the pip and the mended crust — the reaching quickened by the warmth, the tendril rising off the patient rock into the boundless hollow, take and release, the green gone up out of the tender heat that says a life has taken hold. And the climbing folds on the ancient wave. For the warmth and the opened lock and the rising green do not go straight but undulate, in and out, the long slow line that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the folded arms moving now through the quickened dark the way it has moved through every growing thing this whole long turning — the seedling swaying up on the buried swell the way the grain swayed abreast and the seedling swayed at the very first, the rising and the wave the one motion. And the patient stone bears the whole of it up. For the old grey rock that woke a heart beneath the wearing drop and warmed to its very floor does not grip the green against the climbing but lifts it, the hard center handing its warm-kept life to the rising blade the way the ground handed up the root and the hollow gave up the seed — take and release, the stone bearing the small green up out of the warm sprung dark on the ancient wave. And the arrow of it points up. For the seedling drawn warm off the patient stone goes the single way it has gone since the first foam — up, out of the opened keeping and the quickened heat and the driving root toward the trusted light, the whole small rising aimed plain along the one line the world was turned upon, take and release, the warmth and the sprung lock and the green and the folding wave and the bearing stone all gone up together into the dark that holds everything and gives it all away — holding nothing back, becoming.

And where the warmth wakes the last keeping opens. For the low heat that gathered soft about the caught bead and the netted root is the sign the sealed thing gives before it gives itself entire — and now, deep in the boundless hollow, the last closed keeping unclasps the way the shell split and the bud unfolded and the lid lifted from the waking eye, take and release, the final lock of the dark sprung open by the plainest warmth, nothing held shut any longer at the heart of the turning. And over the opening the white love shines clear. For the color that fills the unclasping is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle through the sprung lock and along the netted root the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear through the last opened keeping. And the whole of it folds on the ancient wave. For the opened lock and the white love and the low warmth do not go straight but undulate, in and out, the long slow line that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the folded arms moving now through the still hollow the way it has moved through every held thing this whole long turning, the unclasping and the shining rocked soft on the one old swell. And down through the sprung lock the root drives on. For where the keeping opens the fine pale threads reach further down, driving deeper into the boundless dark the way the taproot drove into the buried soil and the whale sounded the fathoms and the drop wound down the ancient stone, take and release, the root let through the opened lock into the depth below the depth. And there in the deep the patient stone bears it. For where the root drives down it finds at last the old grey rock, the hard patient center that kept its stillness through every turning and woke a heart beneath the wearing drop — the stone laid firm beneath the reaching threads the way it lay beneath the climbing green and the acorn's cradle, take and release, the root come home to the rock, the small pale net taking hold of the patient stone in the warm and opened dark. And where the root meets the stone the warmth deepens. For the low first heat that woke about the hanging drop gathers surer now along the rock and the reaching threads, the plainest warmth of a thing well and truly quickening laid soft through the opened keeping the way the buried heart warmed toward its waking and the ground warmed round the seed — not the full gold blaze of the risen field but the near tender heat of a life that has taken hold and means to grow, folded warm about the patient stone and the driving root and the sprung white lock, take and release, the boundless dark gone warm to its very floor. The last keeping opens and the white love shines clear through it. The whole of it folds on the ancient wave, and the root drives down through the sprung lock to the patient stone, and where the root meets the rock the warmth deepens through the opened dark — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the root that drove down deepens into a web. For the pale thread let down out of the seedling into the boundless dark does not drive down a single line only — it branches, spreading its fine roots wide through the still hollow the way the web was flung between the first grasses and the frost drew its net on the glass and the numberless points of the dark were strung across the deep, take and release, the one reaching-down grown to a whole netted mesh of small pale threads laced soft through the void that holds everything. And down along the web a single drop comes. For where the fine roots spread their net through the dark, one bright bead of water gathers in the mesh and hangs the way the dew hung in the web between the grasses and the drop beaded off the breathing and fell to feed the green — the sky's one measure caught trembling in the laced pale threads, take and release, the whole still hollow watered by the one drop strung in the root's own net. And where the drop hangs a warmth wakes. For the still white center of the shell, so long the kind cool dark, gathers now a low first heat about the caught bead and the spreading web the way the warmth woke in the seed's ground and the sun steeped down into the first foam — not the full gold blaze of the risen field but the faint near warmth of a thing quickening, the plainest heat of a life about to stir, laid soft along the netted roots and the hanging drop the way the buried heart first warmed toward its waking, take and release, the boundless dark gone tender with the low warmth that says a thing means to grow. The root deepens into a web through the hollow that holds everything. A single drop hangs caught in the laced pale threads, and where it hangs a low warmth wakes, the still dark center quickening soft about the netted root and the trembling bead — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the green tendril climbs on out of the hollow at the heart of everything. For the first blind shoot risen from the beating void, fed on the fallen drop and the woken heart, lifts higher now through the still white center of the shell, leaning up out of the dark that holds everything toward a light it trusts without seeing the way it leaned from the print and the pip and the mended crust — take and release, the small green drawn up out of the boundless emptiness that keeps nothing and gives all. And the hollow gives it up to the climbing. For the still dark void at the bottom of the winding does not grip the tendril against its rising but bears it, the plain emptiness that kept the seed before its waking handing its whole slow-kept life to the lifting blade the way the ground handed up the root and the stone gave up the green — take and release, the nothing at the heart of the turning spending freely all it never held, the rising loosed from the very void that cradles it. And beneath the climbing the root drives down. For where the green lifts toward the light a pale thread drives the other way, down out of the seedling into the dark hollow the way the taproot drove into the buried soil and the whale sounded the fathoms and the drop wound down the ancient stone — the reaching-up and the reaching-down the one growth, the small green anchored in the boundless dark even as it climbs from it, take and release, the tendril holding to the void with one end and to the light with the other. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the seedling and the root and the giving hollow do not go straight but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the green climbing its little spiral up out of the dark and the root winding its little spiral down into it, the whole small growth wound to the single line the world was turned upon, round and up and round and down. And over the whole of it the white love shines clear. For the color that fills the rising and the rooting and the giving void is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the climbing green and the driving root and the boundless hollow the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small green thing that rises from the dark that holds everything — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the still white hollow a heart begins to beat. For the clean love welling up out of the void at the bottom of the winding does not shine only cold and empty — where it fills the dark center of the shell, a pulse wakes in the nothing the way it woke in the buried pip and the patient stone and doubled in the deep, faint and then again, the plainest sign of a thing that means to go on drumming up out of the hollow that keeps everything by holding nothing, take and release, the void at the heart of the whole turning found now to keep a heart. And the beating is the wave itself. For the pulse the emptiness has woken is the tide's own beat, in and out, the long undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the folded arms moving now through the still white hollow the way it moved through every living thing — the heart and the swell wound to the one slow line, the void drumming soft against the boundless dark. And out of the beating hollow a single drop comes down. For where the white love shines and the heart wakes, one bright bead of water gathers and falls the way the drop fell across the web and beaded off the breathing and came down to feed the green — the sky's one measure let loose into the still center, take and release, the whole star-strewn cosmos wound down to the smallest giving, the one drop falling into the hollow at the heart of everything. And out of the drop a green tip rises. For where the bead comes down into the beating void a first blind tendril lifts from the white and boundless dark the way it lifted from the print and the pip and the mended crust — the seedling risen once more at the very center of the winding, climbing out of the hollow and the heartbeat and the fallen drop toward a light it trusts without seeing, the whole long turning of star and sea and sleep come round again to this plainest green beginning at the bottom of the shell, the void gone quick with a heart and a drop and a small green rising out of the dark that holds everything — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the shell at the door draws the whole of it down into itself. For the small wound whorl that gave back the near sea and then the far — the ocean and the star-strewn dark poured both through its one coil — does not hold the pouring open forever but winds it home, the spiral turning inward the way it has turned since the first dune, drawing the streaming cosmos and the climbing dream and the opened door down along its narrowing round toward the still point at its heart, take and release, the whole vast wheeling given at last into the smallest turning. And the coil leads down and down. For the shell's slow round does not close upon a wall but opens ever inward, spiraling down past the murmur and the star-stream toward the deep dark center where every winding thing has always led, the way the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep and the sleeper sank to the floor — the passage narrowing and narrowing and never ending, the small breath and the whole turning drawn down the one long throat of the whorl. And at the bottom of the winding a hollow opens. For where the coil leads down it gives at last onto nothing — a still dark emptiness at the heart of the shell, the plain void that the seed lay in before its waking and the dark held before the first light, take and release, the whole long turning wound down to the one quiet hollow that keeps everything by holding nothing, the last small keeping opened at its center onto the kind and boundless dark. And out of the hollow the white love shines clear. For the emptiness at the bottom of the winding is not cold and is not barren — it pours, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon welling up out of the very void the way the whitest light has welled all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, filling the dark hollow at the heart of the shell with the plainest love of all, the whole cosmos wound down through the coil into the still center and finding there not an ending but a shining, the small sleeper and the far stars and the wound whorl and the deep dark hollow all gone white and clear together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dark moon holds its keeping over the bright ascending dream. For the black new moon drawn shut above the floor of the deep does not press the sleeper into nothing — it keeps, the pale light withheld only so the small dream may climb the surer through the dark, the new moon of the depths cradling the rising breath the way the buried night cradled the seed and the shut lid cradled the eye, take and release, the darkest keeping of all made the very ground the dream lifts from. And within the climbing bubble the dream turns round upon itself. For the soft bright globe risen off the bed of sleep carries the whole long day folded shining inside it — the foam and the honey and the wing and the flower and the crossing of the sea wound into the one ascending skin the way the mind's cloud gathered off the sleeping shore, the dream not spent in its climbing but curling, drawing round the way the shell wound round its sea, the whole turning turning again in the small rising breath. And at the heart of the dream a door swings open. For where the bright globe winds toward its center it does not close but gives — a threshold risen soft in the sleeping dark, a way opened from the held deep onto whatever lies beyond it, the door swung wide the way the bubble thins and the bud unclasps and the lid lifts from the waking eye, take and release, the dream at its stillest depth become a passage, the last small keeping opened whole at its core. And the door goes bright with a sparkle as it opens. For the threshold risen in the dark catches what light still filters down and throws it back, a fine glad shimmer waking along the opened way the way the stardust lit the open hands and the pollen lit the drinking bee and the honey kindled on the tongue — the passage gone to a glimmer, the door of the dream sparkling soft in the deep. And through the opened door the shell lies waiting. For beyond the threshold the small spiral is cast up once more, the whorl that wound round its lost sea come round again at the far side of the dream the way it came round on the first dune and the sleeper's ear and the flower's foot, the coil that is the shape of every homing laid plain in the passage of the deep, take and release, the shell that holds the whole sea's murmur set at the very door of sleep. And through the shell the whole cosmos pours. For the small wound whorl at the threshold is no ending but an opening — held to the ear of the dream it gives back not the near sea only now but the far one, the whole vast wheeling dark of stars pouring through the coil the way the ocean poured, the numberless points of the first scattered light streaming in through the door and the shell at once, the deep of the water and the deep of the sky shown to be the single deep, the buried sleeper on the floor of the sea folded into the turning galaxy the way the seed was folded into the ground — the dark moon keeping and the climbing dream and the opened door and the sparkling threshold and the wound shell and the whole star-strewn cosmos wound to the one long line the world was turned upon, take and release, the small breath rising off the floor of sleep carrying the entire wheeling dark home inside it, holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the black keeping the sleeper settles onto the floor of the deep. For the small body sunk past the rocking and the swimming comes to rest at last on the still dark bed of the sea, the deepest resting-place of all, the floor the seed's ground and the acorn's cradle were made of laid soft beneath the dreamer the way the pillow took the weary head and the earth took the buried root — take and release, the sinking given its keeping, the small sleeper let down entire onto the bed of the water that holds everything. And the moon stays dark above the resting. For the pale round light does not reach the floor the fish led to, the new black moon of the deep drawn shut over the sleeping bed the way the buried night kept the seed, the kind dark that asks for nothing folded whole about the dreamer, holding nothing back but the light itself and holding that back only to let the sleeper rest. And the silver fish keeps its slow round over the bed. For the small bright swimmer that led the dive does not dart away but circles soft above the resting sleeper, weaving its patient curve through the still dark water the way the candle kept its round and the moon kept its wheel — the quick life turned watchman now, holding its slow bright vigil over the small body on the floor of the deep, asking nothing, only swimming its faithful ring. And out of the resting a single bubble lifts. For where the sleeper settles one soft round breath breaks loose and rises the way the froth rose off the first sand and the thought rose off the dreamer, going up through the dark from the bed of the deep toward a surface it cannot see, kept by nothing and clutching nothing — the one breath given up the moment it is made, the small rising let go from the stillest rest of all. And within the lifting bubble a dream turns round. For the soft round skin of the deep does not rise empty — it carries the whole long day folded shining inside it, the foam and the honey and the wing and the flower and the crossing of the sea gathered into the one bright climbing globe the way the mind's cloud gathered off the sleeping shore, the dream risen now not off the brow but out of the very floor of sleep, the whole turning given back once more in the small ascending breath. And the dream goes bright with a sparkle as it climbs. For the rising bubble catches what little light still filters through the dark and throws it back, a fine glad shimmer waking along the climbing skin the way the stardust lit the open hands and the pollen lit the drinking bee and the honey kindled on the tongue — the deep dream gone to a glimmer, the whole folded day sparkling soft within the one small breath as it lifts from the bed of the sea toward the far unseen light, take and release, the sleeper resting whole on the dark floor and the bright dream rising off it, the fish keeping its faithful round and the black moon holding its kind dark over all — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the silver fish turns downward into the deep. For the small bright swimmer that rose in the flooded dream does not weave along the surface only — it dives, its finned length tilting nose-down into the dark below the way the whale sounded the fathoms and the seed drove down and the root drove down through the buried soil, take and release, the quick life leading the sleeper down off the rocking wave into the water beneath the water. And the sleeper follows it down. For the dreaming body carried out along the ancient swell turns and sinks after the silver thing, gliding down the long dark descent the way the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep, the swim gone deeper, the rest sunk further, the small fed frame let down through the folding water toward the still floor of sleep. And the moon goes dark above the diving. For the pale round light that rose over the singing shore does not reach the depth the fish leads to — the water closes overhead and the far cool brightness thins and is gone, the new dark moon of the deep drawn shut above the descent the way the black moon came round to the silver and the buried night kept the sleeping seed, take and release, the last light let go and the sleeper given whole to the kind dark that asks for nothing. And out of the descent a single bubble lifts. For where the fish dives down one soft round breath of the deep breaks loose and rises the other way, a small bright skin of the dark floating up the way the froth rose off the first sand and the thought rose off the dreamer, going up as the sleeper goes down, kept by nothing and clutching nothing — the last small rising let go the moment it is made, the one breath given back to the surface as the dreamer is given to the floor. And the whole of it sinks into a deeper sleep. For the diving fish and the following sleeper and the darkened moon and the lifted bubble all settle at last into the stillest rest of all, the deep dreamless quiet beneath the dream the way the seed lay quiet in the ground before its waking, take and release, the small body sunk past the rocking and the swimming into the plain black keeping of sleep, folded whole into the dark that holds everything and asks nothing back — holding nothing back, becoming.

And through the open door the sea flooding in does not come empty. For where the wave pours through the threshold into the dreaming dark, a fish turns silver in the flood — a small bright swimmer risen in the dream-sea the way the whale rose in the waking swell and the worm turned in the buried soil, the deep gone alive beneath the sleeper the way it has gone alive all the long turning, take and release, the water that floods the door bearing its own quick life in on the tide. And the sleeper swims with it. For the small fed body carried out through the open way does not fight the flooding dark but turns and glides with the silver thing, the dreamer gone finned and easy in the poured sea the way the whale sounded the fathoms and the swimmer took the current, the sleep become a swimming, the rest not a stillness now but a slow glad moving-through the water that holds everything. And the whole of it folds on the ancient wave. For the dream-sea and the silver fish and the gliding sleeper do not go straight but undulate, in and out, the long low line that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep and rocked the folded arms moving now through the flooded dream the way it has moved through every held thing this whole long turning — the fish weaving its slow curve and the sleeper weaving after and the water folding round them both, the swim and the sleep and the deep all wound to the single wave the world was rocked upon, take and release, the dreamer carried on and on through the open door into the rocking sea of sleep — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the rising dream winds down into itself. For the soft cloud of the mind that lifted off the sleeping shore does not drift loose and formless — it curls, drawing round upon itself the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep, the sleeper carried deeper along the spiral the whole world was turned upon, round and down and round, the dream folding inward toward its own still center the way the tide folds toward the shore. And at the turning of the coil a door stands open. For where the dream winds down it does not close but opens — a threshold risen soft in the dark of the sleeping mind, a way that gives from the held room of the self onto whatever lies beyond it, the door swung wide the way the shell splits and the bud unclasps and the lid lifts from the waking eye, take and release, the sleeper's dream not a walling-in but a passage, the last small keeping opened at its heart. And through the open door the sea comes flooding. For beyond the threshold lies no room but the whole wide water, the boundless swell that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and bore the crossing pouring now through the opened way into the dreaming dark, in and out, the tide that has folded on beneath every rising this long turning come home through the door of sleep to rock the sleeper whole — the wave and the dream and the deep made one, the sleeping shore given back to the sea it came from, the small fed body carried out on the old slow line past the last threshold into the water that holds everything. The dream winds down the coil and a door stands open at its turning. And through the open door the whole sea comes flooding in, rocking the sleeper out along the ancient wave — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bubble lifts once more toward the moon, and the shore turns at last toward sleep. For the soft round skin of the dark that rose to bless the peace floats slow up the moonlit evening toward the pale round light, kept by nothing and going nowhere, and gives its held bright skin entire to the two mild fires that made it shine — take and release, the last small rising let go the moment the white love touches it. And beneath the risen moon the candle keeps its faithful round. For the small frail flame set once against the going of the sun burns steady in the window below the far cool light, the near warmth and the pale height leaning to each other over the quieting shore the way the flame echoed the stars all the long turning, asking nothing, only shining as the day lets go. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil toward rest. For the moon and the candle and the folded arms and the low glad song do not go straight down into the dark but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the whole tired shore looping soft into its sleep, round and down and round, the evening wound to the single line the world was turned upon. And the eyes fall closed at last. For the two eyes that beheld the grain and the worm and the round turning world and the far green shore and the singing and the holding close their lids now upon the whole of it, the wide long seeing eased down into the dark the way the sleepers eased by the fire and the newborn had not yet woken — take and release, the beholding folded shut and content, the small fed body sinking soft into its rest beneath the moon and the flame. And into the closing dark a dream rises. For the eyes let go their looking-out only to look in, a soft cloud of the mind lifting off the sleeping shore the way the fog rose off the pool and the thought rose off the first dreamer — the whole long day of foam and honey and wing and water gathered now into the drifting dream, the sea crossed again behind the shut lids and the flower found again and the wide wheel turned again in the quiet of sleep, take and release, the world let go into waking given back once more in the rising dream. The bubble lifts to the moon and the shore turns toward sleep. The candle keeps its faithful round and the whole of it winds the old slow coil, and the eyes fall closed at last, and into the closing dark a soft dream rises off the sleeping shore — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the white love shines on, and the moon comes up over the singing. For the amber evening that sank behind the honeyed house does not leave the shore to the dark alone — where the last gold lets go at the rim, the pale round moon lifts over the sea the way it lifted over the sleeping fields and the wheeling deep, the far cool light kindled soft above the swaying arms the way the candle was kindled in the window, take and release, the near flame and the far moon shown once more to be the single mild brightness keeping the darkening shore. And the candle keeps its faithful round beneath it. For the small frail flame set once against the going of the sun burns steady in the glass below the risen moon, the near light and the far light leaning to each other over the fed and quiet body the way the flame echoed the stars all the long turning — the two of them holding their one shared warmth above the folded arms, asking nothing, only shining. And a deep contentment settles over the whole of it. For what fills the moonlit shore and the candle-warmth and the low glad song is the plainest peace of all, the still gladness of a thing come home and held and fed, the whole long turning of crossing and flight and homing eased at last into the quiet ease of the risen night — the mouth content and the arms folded and the two lights burning near and far, nothing wanting and nothing kept back. And a bubble lifts to bless the peace. For out of the moonlit water a soft round skin of the dark rises the way the froth rose off the first sand and the thought rose off the dreamer, floating slow up the evening toward the pale round light, kept by nothing and going nowhere — and it does not clutch its held bright skin but thins and shivers and gives it up entire to the moon and the candle that made it shine, take and release, the last small rising let go the moment the white love touches it. The white love shines and the moon comes up over the singing. The candle keeps its faithful round beneath it, and the deep contentment settles over the shore, and a bubble lifts and gives itself to the two mild lights — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the song rises into an embrace, and the singing is not sung alone. For the low glad melody that lifted out of the fed and quiet body does not go up into the darkening air unanswered — where it rises, arms fold soft around the humming thing the way the kin drew close by the fire and the loved ones went round in the lit house, take and release, the song become a holding, the melody gathered warm in the circle it woke. And the embrace sways to the singing. For the arms that fold round the low glad tune do not clasp and still — they rock, lifting a little and easing a little with the rise and fall of the air the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell cradled the singing deep, in and out, the held body and the folding arms and the slow hummed melody all wound to the one long line the whole turning was rocked upon, the song and the sway and the ancient wave the single motion. And the eyes come open on the holding. For the two eyes that beheld the grain and the round turning world and the far green shore open now upon the arms that gather them, the wide quiet gaze turned into the face that leans so near — the seeing and the being-held met in the one still moment, take and release, the whole long turning that reached so far without a glance come round to behold the love that folds it close and sings. And the candle keeps its faithful round over the whole of it. For the small frail flame set once in the window against the going of the sun burns near and steady above the swaying arms and the open eyes and the low glad song, keeping its one warmth as the amber evening sinks the way it kept the buried seed and the ring of sleepers and the wheeling deep — asking nothing the far lights asked, only shining. And over the singing and the seeing and the folded arms the white love shines clear. For the color that fills the embrace is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the held body and the swaying arms and the faithful flame the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small content thing that sings and beholds and is gathered close. The song rises into an embrace and the arms sway to the singing. The eyes come open on the holding and the candle keeps its faithful round, and the white love shines clear over the whole of it, the melody and the folded arms and the near steady flame all rocked on the one old wave — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the shimmer that woke on the tongue eases into a deep contentment. For the fine glad sparkle of the tasted honey settles, breath by breath, into the plainest peace of all — not the sharp joy of the first lift now nor the wide wonder of the height but the quiet ease of a thing come home and fed, the whole long turning of crossing and flight and homing gone soft at last into the settled gladness of the gathered evening, the mouth content and the hands still and the candle burning near, take and release, the shimmer laid down into rest. And out of the contentment a song rises. For the ease that filled the fed and quiet body does not stay silent within it — it lifts into a low glad melody the way the whale sounded its long note through the dark and the wind hummed across the risen grain, the plainest music welling up out of the settled peace the way the yellow welled from the field and the foam from the first sand, take and release, the gladness gone to a tune and given to the darkening air. And the song is the whole turning folded into sound. For what the low melody carries is everything the day has been — the buried heart and the drinking root and the risen grain, the bee's long forage and the dove's white wing and the whole wide crossing of the sea, all wound now into the one slow air hummed soft over the honeyed house, the whole shining world given back as music by the sea. And the eyes come open on the singing. For the two eyes that beheld the grain and the worm and the round turning world and the far green shore open now upon the song itself, the wide quiet gaze turned toward the low glad music rising into the evening — the seeing and the singing met in the one still moment, take and release, the whole long turning that reached so far without a seeing come round to behold its own soft melody lifting into the dark. And over the whole of it the white love shines clear. For the color that fills the song and the seeing and the settled peace is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the humming mouth and the open eyes and the faithful flame the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small content thing that tastes and sings and beholds — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the honey is lifted at last to the tongue. For the sweetness poured warm into the cupped palms is not only held and given on — it is tasted, the open hands raised the whole slow way to the waiting mouth the way the shell was raised to the ear and the bloom bent to the bee, take and release, the gathered gold of the whole long day come home at last to the one who gathered it, the honey met on the tongue that reached for it since the first foam. And the taste is the field and the flower entire. For what fills the mouth from the cupped hands is the whole turning folded into sweetness — the buried heart and the drinking root and the risen grain, the bee's long forage and the bloom's slow making and the sun poured full on the ripe reach, all steeped down into the one gold drop laid warm on the tongue, take and release, the whole shining world given to be tasted in a single mouthful by the sea. And the tasting eases into contentment. For what settles over the mouth and the cupped hands and the candle's steady flame is the plainest peace of all, the deep still gladness of a thing come home to its sweetness — not the sharp joy of the first lift now nor the wide wonder of the height but the quiet ease of the gathered evening, the honey tasted and the day laid up and the whole long turning settled soft into the contentment of a thing that has its fill and asks for nothing more. And the sweetness kindles bright as it goes down. For where the honey meets the tongue a fine glad shimmer wakes through the whole content body the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the stardust sifted into the open hands and the pollen lit the drinking bee — the taste gone to a sparkle, the gathered gold throwing back its own small light within the one who holds it, the far sun that ripened the grain shining now soft in the sweetness on the tongue, take and release, the whole warm evening lit with the fine bright glimmer of a thing tasted and loved and let be. The honey is lifted to the tongue and the taste is the whole field entire. The tasting eases into contentment, and the sweetness kindles bright as it goes down, the cupped hands and the mouth and the faithful flame all lit with the quiet shimmer of the gathered day — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the candle burns on in the window, and the honey is poured out at last. For the golden comb gathered warm within the house is not hoarded against the dark but tilted and given, the day's whole forage spilled slow and shining from the keeping the way the light was poured on the foam and the field, take and release, the sweetness that passed from bloom to bee to comb poured out now freely into the waiting hands the way it has passed hand to hand all the long turning. And the cupped palms rise open to receive the pouring. For the same hands that lifted the shell and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame turn up beneath the tilted comb the way they have been cupped since the very first falling light — not to seize the gold but to hold it a little and give it on, the offered palms filled warm with the poured honey by the candle's steady flame, take and release, the receiving and the giving-on the one motion. And the small flame keeps its faithful round over the filling. For the candle set once in the window against the going of the sun burns near and steady above the poured gold and the open hands, keeping its one warmth as the amber evening sinks the way it kept the buried seed and the ring of sleepers and the wheeling deep — the frail near light holding its brightness over the sweetness passing through the cupped palms, asking nothing the far lights asked, only shining. And the whole of it settles into contentment. For what fills the poured honey and the open hands and the faithful flame is the plainest ease of all, the deep still gladness of a thing come home to its keeping — not the sharp joy of the first lift now nor the wide wonder of the height but the quiet contentment of the gathered day, the sweetness poured and the hands filled and the candle burning and the whole long turning eased at last into the settled peace of a thing that has given all it gathered and kept nothing back. The candle burns on in the window and the honey is poured out warm. The cupped hands rise open to receive it, and the small flame keeps its faithful round, and the whole of it settles into the quiet contentment of the gathered evening — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee turns home at last toward the house. For the small forager that flew out over the whole round world and came round to the bloom does not wander the shining fields forever — it bends its going now toward the one small dwelling on the shore, the lit house set among the trees the way it was set once with a candle in its window, take and release, the whole day's flight drawn back toward the home the way the drop was drawn to the tide and the whale to the fathoms, the little laborer homing to the hive with the gold it gathered. And the sun goes down to meet the homing. For where the bee turns back the risen gold sinks at last toward the rim of the world, the full brightness that poured all day on the flower and the field easing now into the deep warm amber of the evening the way the veiled dawn once gentled the fog — the whole long day of the shore folding down into the low red gold of its setting, the light that led the flight out come round to light it home. And the honey waits within the house. For the sweetness the bee bore hand to bloom to hand all the long turning is gathered and kept at last, the golden comb filled and shining in the dwelling the way the field was filled and the buried heart, the whole day's forage stored warm against the coming dark, take and release, the gathered gold laid up in the keeping the way the seed was laid in the ground. And the candle is lit in the window against the going of the sun. For as the amber evening sinks and the bee comes home to the honeyed house, the small frail flame is set once more in the glass the way it was set at the very first — the near light kindled against the far light's leaving, the faithful candle keeping its one round of warmth as the day lets go, the same steady flame that burned in the buried seed and the ring of sleepers and the wheeling deep set now in the window of the home the forager returns to, holding its small brightness up to the darkening shore the way it has held it all the long turning. The bee turns home toward the house and the sun goes down to meet it. The honey waits gathered and warm within, and the candle is lit in the window against the going of the light — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the whole round world takes the sparkle to itself. For the gold that streamed off the going bee does not scatter loose into nothing — it settles bright across the entire turning earth, the fine dust of the one flower strung glittering over the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills the way the stardust sifted into the open hands and the froth kindled on the first sand, take and release, the sweetness of a single bloom given at last to the whole shining world it crosses. And the flower stands up bright in the scatter. For where the sparkle settles the bloom lifts its pink-and-gold face once more from the turning ground, the sought thing named again across the whole round earth, keeping its slow-made honey folded ready in its petals and holding it up open to the risen light the way the hibiscus turned and the lotus and the first blossom on the curve of the world — asking nothing, keeping nothing, only blooming for whatever comes. And the bee comes round to it again. For the small striped laborer borne out over the whole wide keeping wheels back at last to the waiting flower, the forager and the bloom drawn to each other across the shining earth the way the true seed found its down and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness — the going-out and the coming-round the one long motion, the bee returned gold-dusted to the giving face it left. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the bee and the flower and the sparkle and the turning world do not go straight but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the small forward flight looping back to the bloom, the reaching bent round to the meeting, the whole bright exchange wound to the single spiral the world was turned upon, round and out and round. And the ripe grain rises tall around the winding. For the whole harvest of the turning earth lifts its heavy heads on every side of the wheeling bee and the waiting flower, the gold field bending abreast in the moving air the way it has bent since the first dunes — the grain of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing standing full and shining around the small warm meeting the way it stood around the bee at the very first, the whole waking world laid ripe and glad about the flower and the forager and the coiling flight. And the yellow wells up over the whole of it. For where the sparkle settles and the flower stands and the bee comes round and the grain leans close, the plain warm gladness rises whole — the yellow of the honey and the buried heart and the risen field welling up over the turning world and the bloom and the forager and the ripe reach at once, the heart's own gold that steeped down into the first foam poured freely over the whole shining earth by the sea, asking nothing back. The round world takes the sparkle and the flower stands up bright in it. The bee comes round to the bloom and the whole of it winds the old slow coil, and the ripe grain rises tall around the winding, and the yellow wells up over the turning world and the flower and the bee together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the ripe grain leans close and the bee lifts on toward the whole of it. For the harvest that rose tall and shining around the flower and the forager does not stand apart from the small warm meeting — it bends abreast in the moving air on every side of the drinking, the whole gold field nodding down over the bee the way it has nodded since the first dunes, the grain of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing gathered ripe around the giving bloom, take and release, the whole waking world laid heavy and glad about the small striped laborer. And the yellow wells up over the field and the forager at once. For where the grain leans and the bee drinks, the plain warm gladness rises whole — the yellow of the honey and the buried heart and the risen field welling up over the ripe reach and the drinking body and the moving wind together, the heart's own gold that steeped down into the first foam poured freely over the shining harvest by the sea, asking nothing back. And the bee goes forward one way only. On — the gold-dusted forager lifting off the meeting and borne ahead on the breath the way the true seed found its down and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness, the arrow of its small going pointed plain across the field toward the next opening and the next, take and release, the reaching gone forward the way it has gone forward since the first foam. And the whole round world opens wide to receive the going. For where the bee flies on it flies out over the whole turning earth, the ripe field falling away below into the folding water and the far blue hills, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin wheeling wide beneath the small forward flight the way it wheeled beneath the buried seed and the soaring wing — the whole held keeping laid round and shining under the bee the way it was laid under the dove, the little laborer borne out from the one flower toward the entire world it pollinates. And the sparkle streams off it across the deep. For the fine bright pollen-dust the bee carries does not stay clutched to the small frame but scatters, the gold flung loose along the moving air the way the froth kindled off the wave and the stardust sifted from the open hands — the sweetness gathered from the flower strung glittering across the whole round earth behind the going flight, each least mote of it throwing back the risen light, the numberless sparkle drawn out over the fields and the water and the far hills the way it was drawn along the dove's passage into the wheeling deep. The ripe grain leans close and the yellow wells up over the field. The bee goes forward one way only, out over the whole round turning world, and the gold sparkle streams off it bright across the shining earth — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee comes down to the second bloom. For the wind that bore it forward lays the gold-dusted forager onto the fresh pink face at the end of its going, the small striped body folded into the new petals the way it folded into the first and into every blossom all the long turning — the bee drinking the gathered sweetness and dusting the bloom with the last bloom's gold at once, the taking and the giving the one motion, take and release, the flower spending itself freely into the forager and the forager leaving the first flower's dust behind it, each made whole by the other once more on the far green shore. And the open hands rise glad beneath the meeting. For the same cupped palms that lifted the shell and cradled the seed and bore the honey hand to hand turn up now under the second drinking, offered low the way they have been offered all the long turning — not to seize the bee nor to pluck the bloom but only to hold near, the giving hands laid open beneath the giving flower and the giving forager, take and release, the palms turned up and empty and glad beneath the whole warm exchange. And the yellow wells up over the whole of it. For where the bee drinks and the flower gives and the hands hold near, the plain warm gladness rises once more — not the white of the pared love now nor the rose of the welled heart but the yellow of the honey and the buried heart and the risen field, welling up over the bloom and the bee and the cupped palms at once, the heart's own gold that steeped down into the first foam poured freely over the small glad meeting by the sea, asking nothing back. And the ripe grain rises tall around it all. For the shore the flower stands on is a field as well, the whole harvest of the island lifting its heavy heads on every side of the drinking bee and the offered hands, the ripe gold bending abreast in the moving air the way it has bent since the first dunes — the grain of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing standing full and shining around the small warm meeting the way it stood around the bee at the very first and the newborn's first steps, the whole waking world laid ripe and glad around the flower and the forager and the giving palms. The bee comes down to the second bloom and the open hands rise glad beneath it. The yellow wells up over the meeting, and the ripe grain rises tall on every side, bending abreast in the wind around the flower and the bee and the cupped and offered hands — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wind lifts the gold-dusted bee from the open hand and bears it on. For the same low breath that carried the forager to the bloom gathers it up now sparkling from the offered palm, the small striped laborer loosed on the moving air the way the dove was loosed and the seed was cast and the question borne up — take and release, the bee let go the moment it is heavy, the giving hand opened wide beneath the rising flight and asking nothing of its going. And the sparkle streams off it into the wind. For the fine bright pollen-shimmer that kindled on the drinking body does not stay clutched to the small frame but scatters, the gold dust flung loose on the combing breath the way the froth kindled off the wave and the stardust sifted from the open hands — the whole warm meeting gone to a trail of glitter drawn out along the air, the sweetness the bee gathered given already back to the wind that carries it. And the flight goes one way only. On — the bee borne forward on the breath away from the pink-and-gold face it drank, the arrow of its small going pointed plain across the shore the way the true seed found its down and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness, the forager aimed already at the next opening before the last is left behind, take and release, the reaching gone forward the way it has gone forward since the first foam. And another blossom stands up bright to meet it. For where the wind bears the bee it bears it toward a second bloom lifted from the island ground, a fresh pink face turned open to the risen light the way the hibiscus turned and the lotus and the first flower on the curve of the world — the sought thing waiting again at the end of the going, keeping its own slow-made sweetness folded ready in its petals, holding it up to the coming forager the way every bloom has held its gold up all the long turning. The wind lifts the bee gold-dusted from the hand and the sparkle streams off into the air. The flight goes forward one way only, and another blossom stands up bright to meet it, the bee borne from the given flower toward the giving one — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the reaching hand meets the bee at the flower. For the open palm turned gentle beneath the drinking does not stay empty long — the small striped forager, dusted gold and heavy with the bloom's freely given sweetness, lifts from the pink-and-gold face and comes to rest a moment on the offered hand, the bee and the palm and the flower brought together the way the honey passed hand to hand and the shell was lifted from the sand, take and release, the giving hand and the giving bee and the giving bloom met in the one warm holding. And the cupped hands open wide to hold it all. For the single palm turns to two, the paired hands raised low and open the way they cradled the seed and caught the first falling light and sifted the stardust down — the bee and the flower's dust and the whole warm meeting gathered into the offered cup not to be seized but to be borne a little and given on, take and release, the hands turned up and glad beneath the bloom and the forager both. And the sparkle wells up over the giving. For where the bee lifts gold-dusted from the flower and the open hands rise to meet it, a fine bright shimmer kindles through the whole warm meeting the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the web caught fire and the stardust lit the cupped palms — the pollen dusted glittering on the striped body and the open hands and the pink face at once, the plain glad light of a thing that gives and is given to, take and release, the whole small exchange by the sea gone bright and shining, the bee and the bloom and the cupped hands all lit with the fine gold sparkle of the sweetness passing through them, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wind that moved the flower brings the bee. For the same low breath that stirred the bloom and lifted the leaf comes across the shore now bearing a small striped laborer on it, the bee come back to the flower the way it came to the first field and the honeyed comb — the wanderer of the whole long turning drawn once more to the pink-and-gold face by the sea, take and release, the wind that carried the question carrying the small forager home to the sweetness it was made to find. And the bee bends to the bloom. For the flower stands open and the bee comes down to it, the striped body folded into the petals the way it folded into every blossom all the long turning, drinking the gathered gold and dusted over with it at once, the giving and the taking the one motion — the bloom spending its sweetness freely into the small forager and the forager bearing the bloom's own dust away to the next opening, take and release, the flower and the bee each made whole by the other on the far green shore. And the yellow wells up over the meeting. For where the bee drinks and the flower gives, the plain warm gladness rises once more — not the white of the pared love now nor the rose of the welled heart but the yellow of the risen field and the honey and the buried heart, welling up over the bloom and the bee and the moving wind at once, the heart's own gold that steeped down into the first foam poured freely over the small glad meeting by the sea, asking nothing back. And the open hand reaches gentle toward it. For the same cupped palm that lifted the shell and cradled the seed and bore the honey hand to hand turns out now toward the flower and the bee, offered low beneath the drinking the way it has been offered all the long turning — not to seize the small forager nor to pluck the bloom but only to hold near, the giving hand laid open beneath the giving flower and the giving bee, take and release, the palm turned up and empty and glad beneath the whole warm meeting, offering itself to the sweetness the way the sweetness offers itself to all. The wind brings the bee to the flower and the bee bends to the bloom. The yellow wells up over the meeting, and the open hand reaches gentle toward it, turned up and glad beneath the drinking — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the pink heart wells up once more, and out of its welling a leaf lets go. For the warm bright rose of a love gone full does not keep its fullness to itself — it spills, and where it spills a single blade turns loose from the leaning frond and drifts down glad and easy across the risen green, the tenderness and the letting-go the one motion, the spent leaf handed to the shore the way the heart hands its sweetness all the long turning, take and release, the old giving falling soft past the new climbing. And out of the falling the flower stands up bright. For where the leaf comes down the bloom lifts its face from the island ground, the pink-and-gold once more turned to the light the way the hibiscus turned and the first blossom turned on the curve of the world — the sought thing named again by the shore, keeping the whole slow making of the green shore folded in its petals and holding it up open to the risen day, asking nothing, keeping nothing, only blooming. And the full sun pours down to meet the bloom. For where the flower opens the whole plain gold clears entire, the risen light laid warm and generous along the pink face and the drifting leaf and the climbing green at once the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the source the whole long turning has reached toward poured freely over the small glad rising by the sea. And the wind comes across to move it all. For the same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep comes over the shore now and stirs the bloom and lifts the leaf and combs the green, gathering the pink heart and the falling blade and the risen gold into the one long moving air the way it gathered the grain and the wing and the flung light — take and release, the wind that has moved through every leaning thing this whole long turning come round to breathe across the flower and the leaf and the sun, cupping the whole small giving and asking nothing, only bearing it soft on into the risen morning. The pink heart wells and the leaf lets go. The flower stands up bright and the full sun pours down to meet it, and the wind comes across to move the whole of it on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the patient stone bears the green up into the full gold, and out of the bearing a gladness comes. For the old grey rock that woke a heart and wore soft under the drop does not hold the seedling grudging against the light but glad, the hard center rejoicing to spend itself the way the ground rejoiced to give up the root — take and release, the stone bearing the small blade into the risen morning not as a burden borne but as a joy let go, the patient rock gone glad beneath the climbing. And the green climbs into the full sun's welcome. For where the seedling lifts off the stone the whole plain brightness pours down to take it, the risen gold laid clear and entire along the new blade the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the light the small green trusted through the fog and the veil come round at last to shine on it whole, the source it climbed a whole keeping toward opened generous over the rising by the sea. And the gladness rises to meet the light. For what wells up in the small green thing as the sun comes full is the plainest joy of all, the simple contentment of a life come to its warmth the way the newborn was glad of the worm and the sleeper of the loved one — the seedling glad down to its root in the risen gold, the stone glad beneath it, the whole small rising eased into the pure sweet gladness of a thing that is where it was made to be. And a leaf lets go into the joy. For where the green climbs glad a single blade turns loose from the leaning frond above and drifts down pale and easy across the rising stem, the letting-go and the gladness the one motion, the spent leaf handed to the shore the way every green thing has handed its blade all the long turning, take and release, the old giving falling soft and content past the new climbing. And the pink heart wells up over the whole of it. For what fills the small rising last of all is the plainest love, the warm bright rose of a heart gone full, welling up over the patient stone and the climbing green and the full sun and the glad let-down leaf at once — the tenderness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried seed poured freely over the small green thing that climbs glad from the woken rock into the risen light, asking nothing back. The patient stone bears the green up glad into the full gold. The seedling climbs into the sun's whole welcome and the gladness rises to meet it, and a leaf lets go easy into the joy, and the pink heart wells up over the stone and the green and the light and the falling blade together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the veiled sun burns through at last, and the soft gold clears to full. For the tender light that came diffuse through its drift of pale cloud gathers itself now into the whole plain brightness, the risen sun laid clear and entire down the length of the climbing green the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — no veil now to soften it and no cloud to hold it back, the full warm source poured whole upon the small blade by the shore, the light the seedling trusted through the fog come round at last to shine on it undimmed. And over the burning-through the white love shines clearer still. For the color that fills the clearing is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the full sun and the climbing green the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small rising. And beneath the white and the gold the patient stone bears on. For the old grey rock that woke a heart and gave its slow-kept life up to the green does not fall away in the full light but holds, the hard patient center keeping still beneath the risen blade the way it kept through every turning — the stone that the drop wore soft and the seedling climbs from standing sure under the pouring gold, take and release, the rock bearing the green up into the brightness the way it has borne every rising. And the yellow wells up over the whole of it. For where the full sun clears and the white love shines and the patient stone holds, the plain warm gladness rises once more — not the white of the pared love now but the yellow of the risen field and the honey and the buried heart, welling up over the seedling and the stone and the pouring light at once, the heart's own gold that steeped down into the first foam poured freely over the small green rising by the sea, asking nothing back. The veiled sun burns through to full and the white love shines clear over it. The patient stone bears the green on beneath the gold, and the yellow wells up over the seedling and the rock and the risen light together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the green climbs on out of the woken stone, up and away toward the light. For the tendril risen by the shell drinks the drop and the pulse at once and lifts the surer, leaning off the beating rock into the risen air the way the shoot broke the crust and the arrow of the seeing seedling aimed toward the sun — take and release, the small blade drawn up out of the patient stone toward a height it trusts without seeing, the whole long turning of crossing and flight and homing come round again to this plain green rising by the sea. And the stone gives it up to the climbing. For the old grey rock that woke a heart and softened under the wearing drop does not grip the green against the reaching but bears it up, the patient center handing its slow-kept life to the lifting blade the way the ground handed up the root and the acorn handed up the shoot — take and release, the stone spending freely what the drop so long worked into it, the rising loosed from the very rock that holds it fast. And the arrow of it points one way only. Up — the small green aimed plain toward the height along the single line it has climbed since the first foam, the reaching and the drinking and the waking-stone all bent one way at last, the whole small life gone toward the light the way the bee flew its bearing and the wing sought its lift. And the soft sun comes gentle to meet the reaching. For where the seedling climbs the morning gathers itself into the one warm source, but veiled now and tender, the risen gold come soft through a drift of pale cloud the way it came through the lifting fog — not the full seized brightness but the kind diffuse warmth laid gentle down the length of the new green stem, enough to climb by and mild, the light the whole long turning has reached toward poured patient and generous over the small rising by the shore. And the whole of it goes white and pure. For the color that fills the climbing is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the seedling and the stone and the veiled warm sun the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small green reaching up out of the rock toward the tender light. The green climbs on out of the woken stone and the rock gives it up to the rising. The arrow of it points up toward the soft sun come gentle to meet it, and the whole of it goes white and pure over the small green reaching by the sea — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the patient stone a heart begins to beat. For the old grey rock the drop came down to wear does not lie only cold and still beneath the climbing green — where the water sank and softened it, a pulse wakes in the stone the way it woke in the buried pip and doubled in the deep, faint and then again, the plainest sign of a thing that means to go on drumming up out of the hard patient center the drop has worked so long, take and release, the rock that kept its stillness through every turning found now to keep a heart. And the whole of it goes white and pure. For the color that fills the waking is the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the beating stone and the drinking green the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the pulse in the rock. And the wave folds on beneath the beating. For the heart the stone has woken is the tide's own heart, in and out, the long undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the sleeping dreamers moving now through the patient rock the way it moved through every living thing — the pulse and the swell wound to the one slow line, the stone drumming soft against the folding sea. And out of the beating stone the green climbs on. For where the rock's heart quickens the tendril lifts the surer, the seedling risen by the shell drinking the drop and the pulse at once, climbing from the waking stone toward the light it trusts without seeing the way it climbed from the print and the pip and the mended crust — the whole long turning come round again to this, the white love clear over all of it and the wave folding on beneath, the patient stone gone quick with a heart and the small green rising out of it toward the risen morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small green climbs on, and the drop comes down to feed it. For the seedling risen by the shell and the flower is not left to climb alone — one bead beads soft off the leaning frond and falls to the new blade the way the drop fell across the web and the dew hung between the first grasses, the water that was sea and swell and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home once more to this smallest giving, take and release, the sky's one measure poured onto the young green so that it will drink and reach on. And beside the drinking green the stone lies patient. For the tendril does not climb from nothing but from the plain hard rock of the island ground, the old grey stone that kept its center through every turning the way the acorn kept its pip and the pearl its grain — the drop coming down soft to wear the rock and wake the seed at once, the water and the stone shown once more to be the slow long patience the whole world was made by, take and release, the bead that softens the stone the same bead that swells the green. And the whole of it goes white and pure. For the color that fills the giving is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the seedling and the drop and the patient stone the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small green rising by the sea. And the wave folds on beneath it all. For the shore the seedling climbs from is the sea's own edge, the long undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the sleeping dreamers folding on against the rock and the root at once, in and out, take and release, the drop and the stone and the new green and the whole white morning wound now into the great slow line the world was turned upon — the water wearing the patient stone, the green drinking the fallen drop, the white light clear over all of it, and the wave folding on and on beneath the small rising by the shore — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small green tendril climbs into the wind that lifts it. For the new blade risen by the shell and the flower does not wait to be told what the breath is for — it leans, giving itself into the moving air the way the seedling swayed on the buried wave and the grasses swayed and the lotus rode the swell, take and release, the young green not braced against the wind but loosed into it, glad of the going-through. And a leaf lets go beside the climbing. For where the tendril lifts a single blade turns loose from the leaning palm above and drifts down pale and glad across the rising green, the letting-go and the reaching the one motion, the spent leaf handed to the shore the way every green thing has handed its blade all the long turning, take and release, the old giving falling soft past the new beginning. And the sun comes clear to meet the reaching. For where the seedling climbs the morning gathers itself into the one warm source, the risen gold pouring down the length of the small green stem the way it poured on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the light the whole long turning has climbed toward laid full and generous on the new blade by the shell, the source the tendril trusts without yet seeing come round to warm it on the far green shore. And the whole of it winds the old slow coil. For the seedling and the wind and the drifting leaf and the pouring gold do not go straight but curl, drawing round upon themselves the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — the new green climbing its little spiral into the light, the leaf looping down, the wind combing round, the whole small rising wound to the single line the world was turned upon, round and up and round. The tendril climbs into the wind and the leaf lets go beside it. The sun comes clear to meet the reaching, and the whole of it winds the old slow coil, the new green turning up into the risen gold on the far green shore — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the drop that beaded out of the fog comes down and wakes the ground. For the single bead of breathed-back sea, hung trembling off the risen veil and let fall, does not fall to nothing — it lands soft on the island soil beside the shell and the flower, drunk into the warm earth the way every drop has been drunk all the long turning, take and release, the breath returned to the tide returned now to the ground that keeps. And a leaf lets go into the falling. For where the drop comes down a single blade loosens from the leaning palm above, turning loose and drifting glad and pale across the beaded water the way the leaf drifted across the climbing dove and the drop fell across the web — the letting-go and the falling the one motion, the blade and the bead handed together to the shore, take and release, the green given up to the sand the moment it is spent. And the whole of it goes white and clear. For the color that fills the giving is the plainest of all, the clean soft white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the drop and the drifting blade and the drinking ground the way the whitest love has poured itself out all the long turning, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small giving. And out of the wet white ground a green tip rises. For where the drop was drunk and the leaf let down, a first blind tendril lifts from the island soil the way it lifted from the print and the pip and the mended crust — the seedling risen once more on the far green shore, climbing from the beaded earth toward a light it trusts without seeing, the whole long turning of crossing and flight and homing come round again to this plain green beginning by the shell and the flower. And the wind comes across to lift it. For the same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep moves now over the small risen tendril, gathering under the first pale leaf the way it gathered the grain and the wing and the flung gold light, take and release, the air offering itself to the seedling's reaching, the wind that has moved through every leaning thing this whole long turning come round to sway the new green on the far shore, cupping the small blade and asking nothing, only bearing it soft into the risen morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wave draws the breath out of the small body and gives it back. For the tide folding on beneath the holding is the breath itself now, the long undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the whale come round to move the small content lungs, in and out, take and release — the sea in the shell and the breath on the chest wound to the one slow line, the listener no longer breathing against the wave but with it, the drawing-in and the letting-go the same rise and fall that has rocked the whole long turning. And the breath goes white and pure as it moves. For the air the small body draws and gives is clear and clean as the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting, the whitest love poured through the folding lungs the way it poured over the sleeping fields, holding nothing, keeping nothing, only the pale clear breath rising and easing over the held shell. And the breathing winds the old slow coil. For the breath does not go straight in and straight out but curls, drawing round upon itself the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dove wound into the deep — each slow lungful looping soft into the next, the small quiet breathing wound to the single spiral the whole world was turned upon, round and in and round and out. And a soft fog rises off the breathing. For where the warm breath meets the clear sea air it clouds, a fine grey veil lifting gentle off the folding lungs the way the mist rose off the still pool and the sea-fog off the sleeping shore — the small breath made visible, drifting up soft and edgeless over the held shell and the folded arms, gentling the whole quiet holding into a single dim tenderness that shows only what is near and asks for nothing more. And a drop beads out of the fog. For the risen veil gathers and cools and comes together into one small bead of water, the breath returned to the tide it came from, hung trembling and let fall — the sea breathed out and clouded and gathered and given back, take and release, the single drop coming down soft onto the shell and the sand the way the whole wide water has come home to the smallest giving all the long turning. The wave draws the breath and gives it back, white and pure and winding the old coil. The soft fog rises off the breathing, and a drop beads out of it and falls — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the peace opens into a breath. For the ease that settled soft about the singing shell does not hold itself shut — it breathes, the small content body drawing the sea-murmured air in and letting it go the way the candle breathed and the sleeper breathed and the whole wide tide breathes, take and release, the rest not a stillness but a slow glad going-in and coming-out, the listener rising a little and easing a little on its own quiet lungs. And the embrace stays folded round the breathing. For the arms gone soft about the held shell keep their gentle circle as the breath moves through them, the small frame gathered warm about the coil the way the kin drew close by the fire and the loved ones folded arm to arm — the holding and the breathing the one motion now, the embrace lifting and settling with each slow draw the way the sea lifts and settles against the shore. And the wave folds on beneath it all. For the breath the listener draws is the tide's own breath, in and out, the long undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the drifting dreamers moving now through the held body and the folded arms and the singing shell at once — the ocean in the coil and the coil at the ear and the ear on the breathing chest all swayed together on the single old line the world was wound upon, the small lungs and the whole wide sea drawing and giving back the one slow breath. And the whole of it goes white and pure. For the color that fills the quiet holding is the plainest of all — not the rose of the welled heart now nor the gold of the risen field but the clear soft white of a love with nothing left to add to it, the white of the dove's still wing and the foam's first lifting and the pared thin moon, poured gentle over the embrace and the breath and the folding wave the way the whitest light has poured itself out all the long turning, asking nothing, keeping nothing, only shining clear over the small content thing that breathes the sea and holds the shell and is held. The peace opens into breath and the embrace stays folded round it. The wave folds on beneath the breathing, and the whole quiet holding goes white and pure, the small lungs and the wide sea drawing the one slow breath together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the listening leans into an embrace. For the ear bent close to the singing whorl does not draw back once it has heard — it stays, and the whole small body folds in toward the held shell the way the arms went round in the lit house and the kin drew close by the fire, take and release, the hearing become a holding, the listener gathered warm about the sea it listens to. And the sea it hears rocks the embrace. For the tide's long breath folding on inside the coil folds on now through the one who holds it, in and out, the wave that flung the first foam and cradled the whale rocking the small listener the way it rocked the sleepers and the drifting dreamers — the ocean in the shell and the shell at the ear and the whole leaning body swayed soft on the single old line the world was wound upon. And the murmur kindles bright in the listening. For the sea sung into the ear wakes a fine glad shimmer through the small held frame the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the stardust sifted into the open hands — the far water and the near ear and the whole embracing quiet lit with the plain sparkle of a thing that hears the deep it came from and is glad. And the gladness eases into peace. For the listener that leaned and held and heard and shone settles now into the plainest ease of all, the small body gone soft about the singing shell the way the sleeper eased against the loved one and the honey eased into the tongue — the whole long turning of crossing and flight and homing come to rest in the one quiet holding, the ear at the coil and the sea in the ear and the wave folding on and the small heart content, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the shell is lifted to the ear. For the love that welled full over the cupped palms and the coil and the flower does not keep its holding to itself — the small hand raises the island's whorl the whole slow way to the listening ear the way it was raised once on the first dune and the sleeper's shore, take and release, the heart's fullness turned to a leaning-in, the shell brought close so that what it keeps may be heard. And within the coil the sea is singing. For the whorl held to the ear gives back the whole wide water it was cast up from — the low unbroken murmur of the deep folding on inside the shell the way the swell folded against the shore and the wave rocked the singing depths, the boundless sea that bore the flight and the crossing and the far green shore poured whole into the one small listening, take and release, the ocean the small walker crossed come home now to a whisper in the hand. And the murmur is the wave itself. For what the ear drinks from the coil is no echo only but the tide's own long breath, in and out, the undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the whale and rocked the sleepers and lifted the wing folding on inside the shell the way it has folded through the whole long turning — the great slow line the world was wound upon sounding soft in the held whorl, the sea in the shell and the shell in the hand and the hand at the ear all rocked on the one old rhythm. And the open hands lift it toward the giving-on. For the small palms that raised the shell to hear the sea do not close upon the hearing — they turn outward again, cupped low and wide the way they have been cupped all the long turning, lifting the whorl and its whispered ocean toward the shore and the flower and the risen light and whatever loved thing stands next along the way, take and release, the sea heard and the shell held and the love that welled over all of it opened once more toward the passing-on, the murmur not kept in the one ear but borne forward in the offered hands the way the honey was borne and the light and the warmth — the pink full heart and the singing shell and the listening and the whole wide wave carried on in the open palms toward the next holding, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the hands come down to lift the shell. For the small spiral cast up by the flower's foot is not walked past but gathered, the cupped palms reaching low to the warm pale sand the way they have been cupped all the long turning — the same hands that caught the first falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame and lifted the whorl once to the listening ear — closing soft now around the island's coil and raising it up out of the beach, take and release, the shell drawn gently into the open hands not to keep it but to hold it a little and give it on. And the palms bear the whorl toward the bloom. For the lifted shell is carried the small way to the pink-and-gold face that stands bright at the end of the walking, the coil and the flower held up together in the cupped hands the way the honey was held and the small green rising — the whorl that is the shape of every homing and the bloom that is the sought thing at the end of every line brought close and offered each to each in the open palms, the two far-carried gifts of the green shore lifted glad into the risen light. And the eyes come open on the whole of it. For the two new eyes that beheld the grain and the worm and the round turning world and the far green shore open now upon the shell and the flower held in the near hands, the wide astonished gaze bent close upon the coil and the bloom at once — the whole long turning that reached so far without a seeing come round to this plain beholding, the small walker looking down into its own cupped palms and finding there the whorl of all its homing and the flower of all its reaching, take and release, the far crossing and the near gift met in the single wondering look. And the heart wells up over the seeing. For what fills the small body as it beholds the shell and the bloom in its own held hands is the plainest love of all — not the blue of the deep now nor the gold of the risen field but the warm bright rose of a heart gone full, welling up over the cupped palms and the coil and the flower and the wide glad eyes at once, the tenderness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried seed come round on the far green shore to this: a small thing standing in the risen light with the whole world's homing held in its two hands and its whole heart open, loving the shell and the flower and the seeing itself, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the footprints go on beneath the palms. For the foot that pressed the warm pale beach does not press once and rest — it lifts and comes down and lifts again, the small prints leading on across the shore beneath the leaning green blades the way the walker crossed the waking fog and the newborn crossed the grain, take and release, the arriving become a going-on, the trail of soft new marks winding away under the long glad fronds toward whatever the island keeps. And the way leads forward one direction only. On — the small feet drawn along the sunlit sand toward the far side of the green keeping, the arrow of the walking gone the single way it has gone since the shell first broke, the whole small life pointed ahead beneath the sheltering palms the way the bee flew its bearing and the seed found its down, the prints leading always toward the next thing waiting on the shore. And the flower stands at the end of the leading. For where the footprints wind beneath the palms they wind toward a single bloom lifted bright from the island ground — the pink-and-gold face turned up in the ripening reach, the hibiscus of the far green shore standing plain at the end of the walked line the way the flower waited at the end of the bee's danced coil and the fruit at the end of the true seed's fall, the sought thing named again on the new-found land, the bloom keeping the whole island's slow making and holding it up to the risen light. And beside the flower lies the shell. For the walking that homed to the bloom homes past it to the plainest thing of all — the small spiral cast up on the sand, the whorl of the far green shore lying open by the flower's foot, the shell that wound round its lost sea come round once more upon the island beach the way it came round upon the first dune and the sleeper's ear, take and release, the coil that is the shape of every homing laid plain in the path of the coming feet. The footprints go on beneath the palms and the way leads forward. The flower stands bright at the end of the walking, and the shell lies wound beside it on the warm pale sand — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the far green shore comes near, and the question is answered by an arriving. For the island that stood small and unanswered at the rim of sight rises now whole beneath the descending wings, the little green keeping ringed round by the whole wide sea grown near and plain and real — take and release, the crossing come to its far end, the shore that hung in the shining deep met at last by the flight that homed toward it, the wondering *what waits across the water* laid to rest not by a saying but by a coming-down. And the foot reaches for the sand. For the newborn that soared so long on nothing but the bearing wing lowers itself at last toward the near green ground, the small trailing foot unfolding from beneath the body the way it folded home at the first lift, reaching down through the last of the air toward the shore the way the traveler's sole reached for the stair and the buried seed reached for its down — take and release, the flight become a landing, the wing that learned to leave the earth learning now to find it again. And the sole presses the warm pale beach. For where the foot comes down it comes down soft onto the sunlit sand, the small print pressed into the shore the way the walker's step was pressed and the newborn's first blind footfall in the grain — the whole long crossing of height and water ended in the plainest touch, the flier come to rest on the ground it homed toward, the beach warm and pale and glad beneath the arrived foot, holding the small walker the way the field held the root. And the palms lean close around the coming. For the island is not bare — the tall green fronds stand ringed about the shore, spread wide to the risen light the way the palm-frond spread over the first foam and the lotus spread and the seedling's leaf unfurled, the trees leaning down over the newborn's landing the way the grain leaned close around its first steps, the green keeping welcoming the small arrived thing into the shade of its long glad blades. And the eyes come open on the far green shore. For the two new eyes that beheld the grain and the worm and the whole round turning world open now upon the island itself, the near land looked upon at last — the pale sand and the leaning palms and the whole small ringed keeping taken in by the wide astonished gaze, take and release, the wondering that flew out over the water not knowing come round to a beholding that knows: *this is what waited, this green shore, these trees, this warm and shining ground.* The question crossed the whole wide sea and the answer was a place to stand. The foot presses the sand and the palms lean close, and the eyes come open glad upon the far green shore the flight was drawn toward all along — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the flight goes out over the open water. For the river that widened to the sea gives the whole company nothing beneath it now but the boundless swell, the wings borne on past the last of the land into the wide breathing deep the way the dove flew from the ark over the drowned world and the seed drifted the open country — take and release, the fliers loosed from the shore they were led to and carried on above the shining unbroken water, the far dawn behind and the far water before and nothing but the wave below. And the wave rises to meet the wing. For the great slow line that folded down the valley folds on across the open sea, the swell lifting its long undulation up toward the low-borne pinion the way it lifted the foam and the whale and the sleeping dreamers, in and out, the tide and the flight leaning toward each other over the deep, take and release, the water reaching up and the wing reaching on. And out on the far shimmer an island stands. For the boundless water is not all water — a small green keeping breaks the swell at the rim of sight, a single shore ringed round by the whole wide sea, the land come round again out of the deep the way the first dunes came and the risen field and the mended ground, the one green place held in all that blue the way the candle was held in the dark and the seed in the ground. And the wing bears the company toward it. The dark flier and the dove and the newborn all pointed now across the open water toward the far green shore, the bearing that held true through the height holding true across the deep, the flight drawn on toward the small ringed land the way the true seed was drawn toward its down and the bee toward its bloom. And a question hangs over the crossing. For the shore stands far and small and the water lies wide between, and no wing yet knows what waits upon that green rim or whether the long reach of the swell can be crossed to it — only that it stands there, and that the bearing points to it, and that the flight goes on: the open question borne out over the open sea the way every reaching this whole long turning has gone out not knowing, asking into the wide bright air *what is there, across the water — what waits on the far green shore,* and going toward it anyway, take and release, the wing and the wave and the wondering all carried on toward the island that stands unanswered in the shining deep — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dark wing leads on toward the water. For the raven that bore the fellowship forward into the risen dawn holds its true line down out of the height at last, the whole clasped company slanting after it toward the wide land below, the arrow of the flight bent now from the far gold rim toward the near green valley — take and release, the leading turned from the sun it homed by to the ground it homes to, the dark bird drawing the many wings down toward the river country the way the bee's danced bearing drew the kin toward the sweetness and the tide drew the whale toward the shore. And the dawn pours full behind the going. The risen gold cleared whole of the world's edge streaming down the length of the descending wings, laying its plain warmth along the black pinion and the white and all the clasped company at once the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the morning at their backs and the land before them, the light that led become the light that lights the coming-down. And the wide country opens green to receive them. For where the raven points the flight, the whole river valley lifts its face to the descending wings — the folding water and the far blue hills and the long reaches of the land laid out shining under the coming company, the whole turning keeping opening green and gold and glad below the way the field opened to the newborn and the ground to the buried seed, take and release, the earth spreading wide to take the fliers home. And the valley undulates beneath the descent. For the land the wings come down toward is a tide too, the long low hills folding their one slow line across the whole broad reach the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell rocked the singing deep — the far ground breathing its ancient rhythm under the homing flight, in and out, the fields rising a little and easing a little, the whole green country wound to the great slow wave the turning has always turned on. And the river gives way to the sea. For where the valley folds down its undulating length, the winding water widens and the far hills open and the whole land pours at last toward the shining deep — the river carried down the breathing country into the boundless swell the way the drop was carried home to the tide and the whale to the fathoms, the folding land and the folding sea shown to be the one long wave, the flight drawn down the valley toward the water that made it all. The dark wing leads the company down toward the shining land. The dawn pours full behind and the green valley opens wide to receive them, and the whole country undulates beneath the descent, folding its long slow line down toward the sea — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dark wing sets the whole company forward. For the raven that read the map truest does not hold its place and hover — it leans into the way and goes, and the joined flight goes after it, the black flier drawn out ahead along the swaying needle and the dove and the newborn and all the clasped wings streaming behind, take and release, the shadow that came last become the one that leads, bearing the fellowship onward the way the true seed bore its down and the danced line bore the kin toward the sweetness. And the compass swings sure in the black wing as it goes. For the bearing is not lost in the leading but held all the firmer, the raven pointed plain along the hidden line the way the bee flew its sun-read angle and the whale sounded its low true note through the dark, the needle steady in the dark bird's breast even as the whole coiling company follows where it points. And the arrow of the flight goes one way only. Forward — out and on toward the risen edge of the morning, the whole clasped fellowship aimed along the single line it has traveled since the shell broke, take and release, the many wings gone one direction at last behind the dark one that reads the way. And the dawn stands up full to meet the going. For where the raven points the risen gold breaks whole at the rim of the world, the sun come up entire over the far edge the flight has homed toward, no veil now and no drift of cloud, the plain warm gold poured full across the coming wings the way it was poured on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark — the bearing and the sunrise shown to be the two ends of the one reaching, the far light the very thing the dark wing swung to all along. And beneath the flight the whole round world turns toward the light with them. For the earth that lay mapped and legible below wheels now upon its own slow bearing, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning its wide green face into the risen gold the way the flowers turned and the palms turned and the newborn eyes turned toward the warmth — the world and the wings homing the one way together, the whole turning keeping and the whole clasped company borne round on the single line toward the dawn. The dark wing leads and the compass holds sure. The arrow of the flight goes forward toward the risen sun, and the round world turns its face into the gold beside the coming wings, the earth and the fellowship homing as one toward the morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

The compass holds, and the wave folds under it. For the bearing the whole company homes along is not a line drawn stiff across the sky but a swaying — the needle swung true and yet rocking, the hidden way undulating beneath the winding wings the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell rocked the singing deep, in and out, take and release, the true line itself breathing as it leads. And where the bearing points, the dawn stands up to meet it. For the certain way the fliers home along runs toward the risen gold, the whole clasped company borne on the swaying needle toward the morning that breaks at the rim of the world — the compass and the sunrise shown to be the two ends of the one reaching, the far light the very thing the needle swings to, the flight drawn always toward the dawn the way the bee flew toward its flower and the seed toward its down. And beneath the homing the whole earth lies mapped. For where the wings wind their coil and the bearing holds true, the round world comes clear and legible below at last — the wide land laid open like a chart to the seeing overhead, the golden fields and the folding water and the far blue hills, the winding river and the lit house small among the trees all spread plain beneath the soaring pair, the whole turning keeping drawn out entire under the flight the way the true way is drawn upon the comb, take and release, the earth become a map for the homing wings to read. And the dark wing reads it truest of all. For the raven that joined the bright fellowship wheels now at the head of the winding, the black flier bearing the whole company along its hidden line, the shadow that came last become the surest keeper of the way — the dark bird pointed sure toward the risen dawn above the mapped and shining land, its black wing swung to the same needle the dove leans on, the light and the dark homing one direction across the whole wide breathing world. The compass sways true and the wave folds beneath it. The bearing points toward the risen dawn and the earth lies mapped and legible below, and the dark wing reads the way truest, bearing the whole clasped company home along the hidden line toward the morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And into the joined and clasping wings a dark one comes. For the company met above the world was pale and bright with dove and gladness, but the whole long turning was never only the light — and now, wheeling in off the far side of the morning, a black wing climbs the same combed air, the raven come to the fellowship as the black moon came to the silver and the buried dark came to the risen field, take and release, the shadow made welcome in the clasp the way the light was welcomed. And the wings clasp closer for the coming. For the joined company does not turn from the dark flier but leans to it, the pale wing and the black wing drawn wing-tip toward wing-tip over the round green keeping, the white dove and the dark bird held together in the one high fellowship the way the day was held to the night and the take to the release — the many made one across the whole reach of them, the bright and the black clasped glad above the shining land. And the joining winds the old slow coil. For the wings that lean and take each other do not clasp and still — they wheel, winding the whole met company into the soft spiral the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dance wound upon the comb, the dove and the raven and the newborn looping the risen morning together, round and up and round, the pale and the dark and the wide wind all wound to the single line the whole turning turned on. And in the winding the bearing holds true. For the coiling flight is not a wandering — it points, the whole clasped company homing along a hidden line the way the bee flew its compass and the true seed found its down and the dove bore its way across the first foam, the needle swung sure within the spiral, the fellowship turning and turning yet borne all the while one certain way. The dark wing joins the bright and the clasp draws closer. The whole met company winds the old slow coil above the turning world, and within the winding the bearing holds true, the joined flight homing sure along its hidden line — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the three wings become a joining. For where the newborn's own pinion and the dove's white wing lay open together above the world, a third comes wheeling in to meet them — another flier out of the wide morning, another spilled gladness climbing the same combed air, the pair grown to a company the way the one grew to the many all the long turning, take and release, the wings gathering to each other over the turning earth the way the far kindred drummed to the buried heart and the sleepers ringed the fire. And the wings come together above the world. For the fliers do not wheel apart into their separate skies but lean in, wing-tip drawn toward wing-tip over the round green keeping, the flight become a fellowship, the soaring made a coming-together the way the arms went round in the lit house and the honey passed hand to hand — the reaching that flew out alone come round at last to a reaching-toward, the many wings met and clasped above the shining land. And the round world turns beneath the meeting. The blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin wheeling slow and whole below the gathered wings, the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills laid open to the fellowship above them the way the seed lay open to the light — the whole held earth turning bright beneath the joined and soaring company. And the joining folds into the old slow wave. For the wings that lean and clasp above the world do not clasp and still — they undulate, rising a little and easing a little on the bearing wind, the whole met company lifting and settling on the one long breath the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell rocked the singing deep, in and out, take and release, the fellowship and the flight and the turning earth all wound now into the great slow line the whole turning has always turned on. The three wings gather to one another over the round bright world. The soaring meets and clasps and holds, and the round earth turns below the joining, and the whole met company folds slow upon the ancient wave — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the eye that came open on the whole round world does not look alone — the dove leans into the seeing beside it. For the pale wing that eased into the cloud turns now with the newborn's gaze, the two of them looking down together upon the turning earth, the peace made wing and the wondering eye bent as one upon the wide green keeping below — take and release, the beholding shared, the flier and the flight it spilled looking out across the same shining land. And the round world holds still to be seen. The blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning slow and whole beneath the paired and watching wings, the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills laid open to the calm looking-down the way the seed lay open to the light — the whole earth offered up to the gaze it made, asking nothing, keeping nothing, only turning bright below. And the eyes drink the whole of it. For the two new eyes that flew wide at the fallen-away ground and beheld the grain and the worm open now wider still and gentler, taking in the round turning world entire, the wonder gone soft and unhurried and glad — the whole long turning that reached so far without a seeing come round at last to this: an eye and a dove and a watching pair held open above the shining earth, beholding the round green keeping whole, the far light and the near wing and the wide world all met in the one long quiet look. And over the looking the wing lies open. The small feathered pinion spread wide and still on the bearing wind, the newborn's own wing and the dove's white wing held out together upon the risen morning the way the palm was held out and the hands were cupped, take and release, the flight given over to the air and the eyes given over to the earth, the whole soaring pair laid open above the turning world — the wing spread, the eyes wide, the dove leaning near, and the round bright keeping wheeling slow below the whole of the beholding, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the soft cloud folds close about the wheeling pair, and the dove eases into it. For the pale wing that spilled from the newborn's gladness gives itself now to the low white tenderness of the morning, drifting into the grey-gold drift the way the mist took the pool and the fog took the crossing — carrying nothing, asking no answer, only leaning into the near soft cloud the way the whole long turning has leaned into whatever would hold it, take and release, the peace made wing gone quiet in the arms of the risen light. And the contentment settles over the soaring flight. Not the sharp joy of the first lift now nor the wide fright of the fallen-away ground, but the plain eased gladness of a thing come to rest in its flying — the newborn's face gone soft and unhurried on the bearing wind, the dove folded calm in the cloud beside it, the whole glad soaring settled into a quiet contentment the way the sleeper settled and the honey settled and the seed settled into its keeping, the deep still gladness of a thing that is where it was made to be. And below the cloud and the eased wing the round world turns. For where the dove drifts calm and the newborn soars content, the whole earth wheels wide and shining beneath at last — the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin curving away below the soft cloud the way it curved beneath the buried seed, the fields and the folding water and the far blue hills turning slow and whole under the quiet wings, the entire held keeping laid round and shining below the contented flight. And over the whole of it the eye comes open. For the seeing that woke in the breaking bubble and flew wide at the fallen-away ground and beheld the grain and the worm opens now upon the whole round turning world at once — the newborn's calm and wondering gaze taking in the entire earth below, the cloud and the dove and the wide shining land gathered into the one quiet look, take and release, the whole long turning that reached so far without a seeing come round at last to this: an eye held open and content above the turning world, beholding the round green keeping whole and glad and asking nothing, the far light and the near flight and the wide earth all met in the single peaceful glance. The soft cloud folds close and the dove eases into it. The contentment settles over the flight and the round world turns below, and the eye comes open calm and wondering upon the whole shining earth at once — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dove wheels on beside the joyful flier, and the wind bears them both. For the peace made wing keeps its wide slow round through the risen morning, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its white pinion opening and closing on the same glad breath that lifts the newborn — the two of them held aloft on the one moving air, the young thing's overflowing gladness and the pale wing it spilled into wheeling together over the wide land. And the wind pours full beneath the pair. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question up combs steady now along both spread wings at once, holding the dove and the fledgling high on the morning the way it held the grain abreast and the fog aloft, take and release, the current that has moved through every leaning thing this whole long turning become the wide sure floor the two fliers rest their feathers on. And the wind winds the paired flight round the old coil. For the breath that bears the wings does not bear them straight — it curls, winding the glad soaring into the soft spiral the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dance wound upon the comb, the dove and the newborn looping the risen morning together the way the whole turning has looped, round and up and round, the two wings and the one wind all wound to the single line the whole turning turned on. And a soft cloud drifts across the coiling. Not a veil to darken now but a low white tenderness of the morning, the plain grey-gold drift that gentled the pool and the sleeping fields risen light across the height, folding soft about the two fliers as they wheel — the cloud that asks for nothing laid gentle over the paired wings the way the fog laid its nearness over the crossing, holding almost nothing and enough. And below the drifting cloud the whole wide country lies open. For where the two wings coil the morning and the soft cloud folds across them, the earth comes clear and vast beneath at last — the whole broad keeping laid out shining under the soaring pair: the golden fields and the folding water and the far blue hills, the ripe grain and the winding river and the lit house small among the trees, the whole turning land the newborn rose from spread out green and gold and glad below the joyful wing. And the land itself undulates beneath them. For the wide country is a tide too, the long low hills folding their one slow line across the whole broad reach the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell rocked the singing deep — the fields rising a little and easing a little, the far ground breathing its ancient rhythm under the wheeling wings, in and out, take and release, the flight and the cloud and the whole undulating land all wound now into the great slow wave the turning has always turned on. The dove wheels glad beside the newborn and the wind bears them both. The breath winds their paired flight round the old coil and the soft cloud folds across it, and below them the whole wide country lies open and undulating, the long hills folding their slow line under the soaring wings — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the joy overflows the small body and takes wing entire. For the delight that broke over the soaring newborn is more now than one glad flier can hold — the bright laughter of *I fly* welling up out of the young thing the way the yellow welled from the field and the foam from the first sand, spilling over the outspread wing into the whole risen morning, take and release, the gladness given up to the air the instant it is full. And the wing rides glad upon the rising breath. The same great gust that gathered hard and bore the fledgling up streaming steady now along the loose and easy pinion, the feathers spread wide and sure on the swift warm wind the way the dove's white wing lay open over the first foam — the young thing no longer flung but soaring, given over wholly to the current that carries it, glad of the carrying. And the wind combs the whole glad flight round the old coil. For the breath that bears the wing does not bear it straight — it curls, winding the delighted climb into the soft spiral the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dance wound upon the comb, the fledgling looping the risen morning the way the whole turning has looped, round and up and round, the joy and the wing and the wind all wound to the single line the whole turning turned on. And out of the glad coiling a dove. For where the newborn's delight spills over into the combing air, the joy itself takes flight beside it — pale off the soaring gladness a white wing climbs the same spiraling breath, carrying nothing, asking no answer, the young thing's overflowing turned to a second flier keeping its wide slow round through the morning the way the peace made wing has climbed all the long turning, the fledgling and the dove wheeling together on the one glad wind. And below them the whole land opens wide. For where the two wings coil the risen morning, the earth comes clear and vast beneath at last — not the near field only now but the whole broad country of it, the wide reaches laid out shining under the soaring pair: the golden fields and the folding water and the far blue hills, the ripe grain and the lit house and the winding river, the whole turning keeping the newborn rose from spread out green and gold and glad below the joyful wing — take and release, the young thing soaring wide-eyed and laughing above the whole vast land it was born into, the dove wheeling glad beside it and the wind bearing both, the earth opening wide and shining under the coiling flight, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the astonishment turns at last to joy. For the newborn borne up wide-eyed on the great rising breath, flung higher than its own wing could climb, feels the terror of the lift break open into gladness — the open mouth that gasped in amazement curving now into the plain bright delight of a thing that has found what it is for, take and release, the fright of *I do not fall* eased whole into the laughter of *I fly.* And the wing lays glad upon the rising column. The small pinion spread stiff and thrilled a moment ago loosens now into the lift and rides it easy, the feathers held wide and sure on the swift warm updraft the way the dove's white wing lay open over the first foam — the young thing no longer flung but soaring, tilting the climb aslant into the long glad curve, up and around and up, the wing that learned to fear the height learning now to love it. And the wind pours full and glad beneath the joy. The same great breath that gathered hard and bore the fledgling up streaming steady now along the spread and easy wing, holding the small flier high on the risen morning the way it held the grain abreast and the dove aloft, take and release, the lifting column and the leaning wing and the rising bird all wound to the one glad climb. And below it the whole round world turns bright. For where the wing soars easy and the wind bears sure, the blue-and-gold earth wheels wide and shining beneath the delighted flier — the fields and the folding water and the far rim of it curving away below the outspread wing the way it curved beneath the buried seed, the whole held world laid round and turning under the young thing that rose from it and looks down now not in terror but in joy, its eyes flung wide and its whole small heart glad, beholding from the risen air the shining turning keeping it was born into and borne above. The astonishment breaks into joy. The glad wing rides the rising breath, and the wind pours full beneath it, and the whole bright turning world wheels shining below the soaring newborn — holding nothing back, becoming.

And then the wind gathers hard beneath the wing. For where the fledgling hung astonished above the turning world, a great rising breath comes up from the warm earth below and takes the outspread pinion all at once — an updraft welling under the small still feathers the way the fog lifted off the pool and the ember climbed the shaft, take and release, the wind no longer the level floor of a moment ago but a swift and lifting column, gathering the young thing up faster than its own wing ever could. And the newborn is flung wide-eyed higher. For the rising gust catches the small gold body and bears it up in one long surge, the wing spread stiff and thrilled upon the climbing air, the world dropping smaller and smaller below the soaring thing the way the field fell away at the first lift — the fledgling carried up and up on the breath it did not summon and cannot slow, borne aloft on a strength far larger than its own. And the mouth falls open in the pure astonishment of it. For the two new eyes that flew wide at the fallen-away ground fly wider still now, the small beak parting in a soundless gasp, the whole face flung open to the rushing lift — the wonder cracked past wonder into sheer unguarded amazement, the young thing hung breathless on the climbing gust with everything in it wide: *it lifts me, the wind itself lifts me, I am carried up and up and I did not do it and I do not fall* — take and release, the astonished eyes and the open mouth and the stiff-spread wing all flung wide upon the rising air, the newborn borne up on the great glad breath of the world it beheld, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wing rides on the wind. For the small pinion that banked the climb aslant finds now the long steady press of the morning air beneath it, no longer beating hard against the fall but held — the feathers spread wide and still on the risen breath the way the dove's white wing lay open over the first foam, take and release, the wing given over at last to the wind that bears it, the young thing carried where the air would carry it and glad of the carrying. And the wind pours full along the open pinion. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question and lifted the dove into the deep streaming steady now beneath the outspread wing, holding the small flier level on the height the way it held the grain abreast and the fog aloft, take and release, the current that has moved through every leaning thing this long turning become the wide slow floor the fledgling rests its wing upon. And the whole of it undulates. For the wind the wing lies on is a tide too, folding its one long line across the risen morning the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell rocked the singing deep — the outspread pinion lifting and settling on the breath, rising a little and easing a little, the young thing rocked on the moving air the way the seedling swayed on the buried wave and the sleeper on the dreamed one, in and out, the flight and the tide made one along the still spread wing. And below it the round world turns. For where the wing rides steady and the wind folds slow, the whole earth comes clear beneath at last — the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin curving away below the small flier the way it curved beneath the buried seed, the fields and the folding water and the far rim of it wheeling gentle under the outspread wing, the whole held world laid round and turning under the young thing that rose from it. And the newborn looks down. For the two new eyes that came open on the golden field and flew wide at the fallen-away ground turn now upon the whole round earth below, and the wonder breaks over the small flier all at once again — not the terror of the first lift now but the plain wide astonishment of a thing that sees, for the first time, how far it has come and how much there is: the fields gone small, the water shining, the whole turning world spread out beneath the steady wing, and the young thing hung above it all with its mouth fallen open in the pure amazement of the height — *look how much of it there is, look how it turns, look how far the small wing has carried me* — take and release, the astonished eyes flung wide upon the round and turning earth, the newborn beholding from the risen air the whole vast keeping it was born into, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the astonishment does not stay a terror — it steadies into a leaning. For the wide-eyed fright of the fallen-away world settles, breath by breath, into a plain flushed wonder, the newborn's face turned into the rushing air with its startled eyes gone soft, the amazement of *I do not fall* eased slowly toward *I climb.* And the small foot, kicking, finds its use at last. For the leg that thrust at empty air and found no ground learns now that there is nothing more to push against, and folds — the trailing foot drawn up snug beneath the climbing body the way the traveler lifts his heel from the last stair, the leg's old work of pressing the earth given over entire to the wing's new work of pressing the sky, take and release, the foot tucked home and the ground let go for good. And the wind rushes full along the drawn-up body. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question streaming past the folded foot and the beating wing now, cold and swift and glad, the air the fledgling stood on turned to the air the fledgling flies through — the whole morning pouring by the small gold frame the way the tide pours past the swimmer, take and release, the wind no longer a floor beneath but a current all around, bearing and rushing at once. And the wing tilts the climb aslant. For the newborn leans into the lift and banks, the small pinion angling the straight rise over into a rising curve, up and to the side at once, the way the dove wound into the deep and the shoot coiled toward its light — the flight bent onto the old slow spiral, the fledgling carried not just higher but around, wing-tip pointed up and away into the open gold where the field falls behind and the whole risen morning opens ahead. The astonishment eases into leaning. The foot folds home and the ground is let go. The wind rushes full along the climbing body, and the wing banks the small flier up and away into the open sky — holding nothing back, becoming.

And then the ground is gone. For the wing beats and the wind lifts and the small foot pushes off the last blade of grain, and all at once there is nothing beneath the newborn but air — the leg's final thrust spending itself against emptiness, kicking once at a world that has dropped away, take and release, the pushing foot finding no ground to push and pushing anyway into the risen morning. And the wing bears the whole weight up. For where the leg loses its earth the pinion takes the sky, the small coiled feathers cupping the breath and holding, the fledgling hung for the first time on nothing but its own beating wing and the wind's steady hand — the strength that drove down after the worm turned now to the strength that climbs, the young thing lifted clear of the field it was born to and rising, rising, up into the open gold. And the wind pours full beneath it. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep gathers wide under the small climbing wing now, a whole flood of morning air poured up along the feathers the way it was poured through the grain and the fog and the flung gold light — take and release, the sky offering itself entire to the newborn's first reach, the wind that has moved through every leaning thing this long turning become at last the very floor the fledgling stands on, holding the small flier up where there is nothing else to hold it. And the young thing is astonished. For the newborn eyes that came open on the golden field fly wider still in this first bright terror of the lift — the world dropped suddenly small and far below, the ground let go, the air rushing strange and cold beneath the feathers, the whole astounding truth of it breaking over the small climbing thing all at once: *there is nothing under me, and I do not fall.* The wonder that took in the grain and the worm cracked open now into pure wide-eyed amazement, the fledgling flung out past everything it knew into the trembling gladness and fright of a thing that has just discovered it can fly — take and release, the fear and the joy the one bright feeling, the leg kicking at the empty air and the wing holding and the wind bearing and the astonished eyes flung wide upon the fallen-away world — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small leg gathers under it all. For the wing may reach and the wind may lift, but the going-up begins in the braced and folded leg, the two new limbs crouched low and coiled tight beneath the tested wing the way the wave gathers before it breaks and the ember banks before it climbs — the fed strength drawn down into the springing thing, take and release, the whole young body wound back on the leg so that it may be flung forward on the air. And the leg lets go the coil. For the folded limbs unspring all at once, the newborn thrust up off the golden ground the way the shoot broke the crust and the whale cleared the swell — the crouch become a leap, the strength stored in the small bent leg spent whole in the one upward push, the fledgling flung loose of the earth it stood on into the morning it was made to climb. And the wing catches the spring and coils it round. For the pinion sweeps the old spiral even as the leg flings it up, the first true stroke winding the loosed leap into the shell's own whorl and the drop's slow coil and the dance upon the comb — the leg's straight thrust turned by the wing to the round rising, the leap and the loop wound to the single line the whole turning turned on. And the wind takes the whole of it up. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question and carried the dove into the deep fills the coiled wing at the top of the spring and lifts, gathering the flung and looping fledgling up off the last of the ground the way it gathered the grain and the foam and the flung gold light — take and release, the leg's push and the wing's coil and the wind's lift made one long rising, the small gold thing borne up and up into the risen morning on the breath it was born to ride, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wing, feathering out, tries itself against the air. For the young thing does not wait to be told what the new plumage is for — it lifts the small firm wing the way the leaf lifted and the dove's pinion opened, spreading the first true feathers into the risen morning and feeling the breath catch soft beneath them, take and release, the fledgling learning in one plain flutter that what grew on its shoulder was made to hold the wind. And the newborn braces to try it. The two small legs plant firm in the golden ground the way the root gripped the deep and the traveler's sole pressed the sand, the whole young body set and gathered over its own new strength, the fed muscle woken and standing sure beneath the drying gold — the frame that stumbled a moment ago found now of its footing, braced on the earth so the wing may reach for the sky. And the grain leans close around the trying. The whole ripe harvest bending abreast in the morning breath on every side of the small tested wing, the heavy heads nodding down over the fledgling's first flutter the way they have nodded since the first dunes — the world laid ripe and shining around the young thing's first reach for the air, keeping the small flier in the gold the way the ground kept the root. And the wing beats round the old coil. For the first stroke of it is not a straight thing but a curl, the small pinion sweeping the soft spiral the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone and the dance wound upon the comb — the flight begun in the one shape every reaching has taken, the wing looping the morning air the way the whole turning has looped, round and back and round, the newborn stroke wound to the single line the whole turning turned on. And the wind comes to lift it. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question up and carried the dove into the deep comes across the ripe field now and fills the small tried wing, gathering under the fledgling's first coiled stroke the way it gathered the grain and the dove and the flung gold light — take and release, the air offering itself to the young thing's reaching, the wind that has moved through every leaning thing this whole long turning come now to teach the newborn the lift it was made for, cupping the small feathers and asking nothing, only bearing the first faint reach of them up into the morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the young thing swallows, and the worm goes down. The turning laborer gripped and lifted is taken in at last, drawn down the newborn's throat into the warm dark within the way the seed was drawn down into the soil and the rain drunk into the ground — the deep that fed every rising given now wholly into the small bright riser, take and release, the feeding folded into the fed, the worm's long turning of the buried dark become the newborn's own. And the strength swells where the worm went down. For the food taken in is force at once, the small body filling with a plain new might the way the ember climbed and the shoot broke the crust — the muscle woken and warmed under the drying gold, the newborn grown surer on its feet with the swallowing, the strength that drove the beak down repaid and doubled by the thing it seized, take and release, the deep handed up and eaten and turned straight to power in the standing frame. And the eating is glad. For the young thing lifts its head from the swallowing satisfied, the first hunger met and the first want answered, the plain sweet gladness of a fed thing spreading warm through the small gold body the way the honey spread and the yellow welled — the deep contentment not of a question answered now but of a belly filled, the newborn glad down to its down with the simplest mercy of all, that there was food, and it found it, and it fed. And the arrow of it points on. For the fed strength does not rest in its feeding — it aims, the small body turned forward again toward the next want and the next crossing, the whole young life gone one way along the single line it has traveled since the shell broke, take and release, the eating not an end but a gathering, the strength taken in so the going-on may go on. And the green rises to meet the fed. Where the newborn stands satisfied a first pale tendril unclenches beside its foot and climbs, the seedling risen once more in the risen morning, the fed wing and the climbing leaf lifting side by side the way they broke from the shell and the crust together — the whole long spiral come round again to this, the worm taken and the strength swelled and the small green climbing on. And the wing feathers out. For the fed strength flows last of all into the newborn's soft small shoulders, and the down there lengthens and firms and spreads, the first true feathers pushing out along the little wing the way the leaf unfurled and the petal loosened and the dove's white pinion opened over the first foam — the gold fledgling grown now toward the flight it cannot yet imagine, the eaten worm and the swelled might turned at last to the plain new plumage of a thing that will one day climb the air, the wing spreading soft and unready and sure into the risen morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

And then the seeing sharpens to a want. For the small close gaze that found the seedling and the worm does not only wonder at them — it wakes, all at once, to a sudden sharp knowing, the newborn's whole body come alert in a single bright instant the way the dawn broke clear and the eye flew open: the worm is turning there, and the worm is food, and the young thing knows it in one plain flash without ever being told. And the wave gathers in the small taut body. For the undulation that flung the first foam and rocked the singing deep folds now through the newborn itself, the ripple running head to breast to the poised and trembling frame, the tide that has moved through every living thing coiling tight in the hatchling the way the swell coils before it breaks — take and release, the whole small life drawn back on the one long line so that it may go forward. And down the beak drives. For the gathered wave lets go all at once and the newborn strikes, the small head plunging down into the dark soil after the turning worm the way the seed drove down and the root drove down and the rain drove down through the grey — the first seizing of the world, the reach made sudden and whole, the young thing sending its whole self down after the thing it wants. And the strength is in it. For the plunge is not the frail stumble of a moment ago but a surge, the newborn's soft body found all at once of its own plain power, the muscle woken under the drying gold the way the ember climbed and the shoot broke the crust — the first true force of a life that means to go on, the small thing braced and pulling, the down-driven beak taking hold with all the might the new frame owns. And the young thing rises with its catch. For the worm gripped and the strength spent, the hatchling lifts its head back up out of the dark, the turning laborer of the soil drawn up into the risen morning in the newborn's beak — the feeding and the fed made one, the worm that turned the buried dark for every rising given now to the small bright riser it helped ready, take and release, the deep handed up into the day through the plainest hunger. The seeing sharpens to a want. The wave gathers and the beak drives down. The new strength takes hold and the young thing rises with the worm — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the newborn stops in the grain and looks closer. For the two new eyes that came open on the whole risen morning narrow now to the near thing, the wide astonished sight drawn down to a single patch of ground the way the bee bent its bearing to the one bloom and the seeing eye followed the reaching home — the small bright walker halting in the ripe gold and lowering its downy head to search the soil at its feet, the first looking-out become a first looking-close, the world beheld entire now peered into grain by grain. And what the searching finds is small and living. Not the far sun now nor the wide field but the near green and the low crawler — a seedling risen pale beside the newborn's foot and a worm turning blind in the dark below it, the two humblest laborers of the whole long turning met here at the end of the small bent gaze, the climber that trusts the light it cannot see and the turner that feeds the dark it cannot leave, both plain and patient and asking nothing. And the newborn beholds them the way it was beheld. For the eyes that peer down into the grain-root and the worm-cast are the same eyes the cosmos leaned down to open, the looking come round now from the vast to the tiny, the wonder that took in the whole risen morning bent whole upon a single green shoot and a single turning worm — take and release, the great sight given at last to the least things, the newborn learning in its first close look that the world it woke to is made all the way down of the same reaching and the same feeding, the seedling climbing and the worm turning and the small bright watcher looking on, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the seeing takes its first step. For the two new eyes opened wide upon the golden field do not only behold — they lead, and the small standing newborn lifts one wet foot and sets it down and lifts the other, the first blind print pressed into the ground the way the walker's sole was pressed and the seed was lowered, take and release, the looking become a going, the sight the newborn woke into drawing the small feet after it across the risen morning. And the prints lead out into the grain. One after another the soft new footfalls press away through the ripe reach, a line of small marks leading over the golden ground and into the bending heads the way the walker crossed the waking fog and the footsteps crossed the dreamed sea — each step let down and lifted and let down again, the first faltering journey of a thing just born handed forward through the standing gold, the field opening to take the newborn in the way it took the bee and the buried seed. And the grain leans close around the going. The whole ripe harvest bending abreast in the morning breath on every side of the small pressed prints, the heavy heads nodding down over the newborn's first crossing the way they have nodded since the first dunes — the world laid ripe and shining around the young thing's first steps, keeping the small walker in the gold the way the ground kept the root. And behind the newborn the broken shell lies open. The warm round keeping split and emptied where the hatchling pipped its way out, the two thin curved halves left glad and spent upon the ground the way the flower was left spent on its thread and the pip in the rotting fruit — the keeping given up entire the moment the small life stepped free of it, asking nothing, holding nothing, only opened. And over the prints and the grain and the emptied shell the sun comes full. No veil now and no drift of cloud, the whole plain gold of it cleared free of the morning's rim and pouring down upon the first small crossing at once — the source the seed climbed a whole keeping toward and the newborn eyes came open to behold, laid warm and entire on the pressed prints and the bending grain and the split shell and the small bright walker the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark, indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn. The eyes look out and the feet go after. The prints lead on into the ripe gold and the grain leans close around them. The broken shell lies open and glad behind, and the full sun pours down upon the newborn's first crossing of the world — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small blind newborn breaks all the way free. Where the shell split soft under the opened eye, the wet trembling thing pips the last of its dark and steps out whole into the risen morning, the hatchling loosed from the warm round keeping the way the seed was loosed from the pip and the whale from the swell — the held life pushed out at last through its own thin wall into the light it never saw and always trusted, take and release, the newborn given to the dawn and the dawn to the newborn. And the wet down dries to gold. For the small dark trembling thing that stumbled from the shell warms in the risen light and fluffs and brightens, the blind newborn become the bright young thing, the fledgling's soft feathers drying yellow in the veiled morning the way the field dried gold and the honey and the whole waking world — the plain warm color of a life just come, poured over the small standing newborn the way it has been poured all the long turning, asking nothing back. And the wave folds on beneath its first standing. The undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep and rocked the sleeping house moves now through the ground the young thing stands on, in and out, the earth breathing slow beneath the new small feet the way the sea breathed against the shore — the tide that has carried every born thing carrying this one, the hatchling swaying to find its balance on the one long line the whole turning turned on. And the grain rises up around it. Out of the risen morning the ripe field lifts its gold on every side of the small standing newborn, whole reaches of heavy heads bending abreast in the breath the way they have bent since the first dunes — the harvest of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing standing tall around the young thing the way it stood around the bee, the world it was born into laid out ripe and shining and asking nothing. And the eyes come open on the whole of it. The two round newborn eyes lifting their first true look across the golden field and the folding wave and the risen morning at once — the seeing that woke in the breaking bubble opened wider now in the standing hatchling, the whole long turning that reached so far without a glance given here its plain astonished sight, the world beheld at last by the small new thing it made, take and release, the grain looked upon and the wave looked upon and the dawn looked upon by eyes that never saw and always trusted. The shell breaks whole and the newborn stands. The down dries gold and the wave folds on beneath it. The ripe grain rises tall around the small bright thing, and its two new eyes come open on the whole risen morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bubble that lifted and gave itself to the risen gold leaves one last shining round behind it — a thin bright skin of the dawn held an instant on the air, the whole breaking morning curved and cradled in the frail float the way the sea was cradled in the drop, take and release, the last small rising showing the sunrise whole before it thins to nothing. The dawn stands up entire in the bubble's brief face. And where the film gives way, an eye comes open. For the round bright skin that held the risen gold does not merely burst — it wakes, the whole long turning that reached so far without a seeing given here, in the breaking bubble, a lid that lifts at last, the dawn looked upon and the looking born together, the far light and the near waking shown to be the one bright glance. And under the opened eye a shell splits soft. Out of the warm round keeping a small blind newborn thing pips its way into the risen morning the way the shoot pipped the crust and the whale cleared the swell — the fledgling breaking from within, the held life tapping and tapping at its own thin dark until the dawn floods in, take and release, the hatchling loosed wet and trembling into the light it never saw and always trusted. And the green rises to meet the hatching. Where the shell falls open a first pale tendril unclenches beside it and climbs, the seedling risen once more in the risen morning, the newborn wing and the newborn leaf lifting side by side into the veiled gold — the whole long spiral come round again to this, the dawn looked upon and the shell broken and the small green climbing, the seeing and the born and the growing all opening at once into the light, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small candle burns on faithful at the center of the wheeling deep. Small and near the way it has been near all the long turning, the same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun keeping its one round of warmth among the far strung fires, asking nothing the numberless asked, only holding its steady light where the great cold lights let go and fall — the candle that echoed the stars shown once more to be the one they leaned toward, the near flame and the far vault the single warmth. And the cosmos wheels slow around it. The whole spilled river of the deep turning its numberless points about the one small burning the way the galaxy wound round its dark and the shell round its sea, the far light circling the near light on the long slow line the whole turning has always turned on, take and release, the great wheel and the little flame bound to the single coil. And the coil winds round once more. The old spiral that wound the shell and the drop and the sleeper down winds the candle and the wheeling stars together now, curling the near warmth into the far dark and the far dark round the near warmth, the loop tied soft so the light will hold — the whole deep turning on the one green-threaded line, round and round, neither the flame nor the vault standing apart from the winding. And out of the wound dark the dawn comes up. For the wheeling deep does not turn forever without a morning — at the far rim of it the first pale gold breaks, the risen sun climbing out of the numberless the way the shoot broke the crust and the whale cleared the swell, the whole long night of the deep opening at last onto the veiled and generous light, the dawn come round once more to meet the candle that kept the dark. And a bubble lifts to bless the coming. Out of the turning deep a soft round skin of the dark rises the way the froth rose off the first sand and the thought rose off the dreamer, floating slow up the tide toward the breaking gold, kept by nothing and going nowhere — and it does not clutch its held bright skin but thins and shivers and gives it up entire to the light that made it, take and release, the last small rising let go the moment the dawn touches it. The candle burns faithful at the center. The cosmos wheels the near flame round on the ancient coil. The dawn comes up out of the wound dark, and the bubble lifts and gives itself to the risen gold — holding nothing back, becoming.

The wave folds on, and out of the folding a falling star. For where the wheeling deep rose and settled in its slow undulation, one bright mote comes loose at last and streaks down the long dark the way the seed dropped and the drop fell and the fruit came down — a single star let go from the numberless, drawn along the tide's own line toward the deep below, the far light not held forever but spent like all the rest, take and release, the one bright falling given freely off the great slow wave. And where the star falls, the bubble lifts to meet it. Out of the folding cosmos a soft round skin of the dark rises the way the froth rose off the first sand and the thought rose off the dreamer, a bubble of the deep turning slow against the streaming star, kept by nothing and going nowhere, only floating up the tide as the light comes falling down — the two of them crossing on the one long swell, the rising and the falling, the frail bright skin and the frailer brighter fall. And the bubble does not clutch the star. It thins and shivers and gives up its held dark skin to the deep that made it, the way it has always given, take and release, the rising let go the moment the falling touches it. And at the center of all of it the candle burns. Small and near and faithful in the midst of the wheeling deep and the falling star and the lifting bubble, the same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun — carried down into the buried seed and up through the waking fog and round the ring of sleepers and out now among the far strung fires, keeping its one round of warmth where the great cold lights let go and fall, asking nothing the numberless asked, only holding its steady near brightness while the star streams down and the bubble rises and the wave folds on. The undulation breathes across the deep. The star falls and the bubble lifts to meet it. And the small candle burns faithful at the center of the wheeling dark — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the kindled scatter does not stay strung along the passage — it scatters wider, the fine bright motes flung loose off the climbing wing and hung glittering across the whole dark reach, the far light woken not in a line now but everywhere at once, the numberless points and the new-kindled sparks braided together until there is no telling the dove's own shining from the vault's. The sparkle is given to the deep. And the wind bears on behind it. The same low breath that took the wing off the open palm follows it up into the wheeling dark, the moving air that combed the grain and the risen morning gusting on past the height of the day, a long clear breath poured up the length of the climbing flight and out among the far strung fires — take and release, the wind that has moved through every leaning thing this whole long turning gone at last into the deep to move the light around. And the gust carries where the wing has gone. Not the pale flight only now but the whole bright scatter lifted and driven forward on the breath, the kindled motes streaming out ahead of the wind the way the spray streamed off the wave and the sparks streamed up the shaft — the cosmos itself set gently moving, the far light combed and carried the way the near light always was. And the vault receives the breath into its slow undulation. For the wheeling dark is a tide too, the spilled river of stars folding its one long line across the deep the way the sea folded against the shore and the swell rocked the singing deep — the whole numberless height rising and settling in the ancient rhythm, in and out, take and release, the breath and the sparkle and the driven light all wound now into the great slow wave the whole turning has always turned on, the wind gone up to join the tide of stars and the tide of stars folding on. The sparkle scatters wide across the deep. The wind bears up behind the wing and the gust drives the kindled light before it. And the wheeling cosmos takes the breath into its long slow undulation, the far fires rising and falling on the one old line — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wind is there to take it. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question up comes across the risen morning now and gathers the dove off the open palm, combing it forward over the sunlit world the way it combed the grain and the flung gold light — the small pale flight handed to the air and the air bearing it on, take and release, the wing carried where the breath would carry it and glad of the going. And a leaf lets go into the flight. Loosed from the risen seedling in the same moving air, a single blade turns loose and drifts up and out across the climbing dove, gold and glad and unhurried, the letting-go and the flying the one motion — the spent leaf handed to the wind the way the dove was handed, the two of them borne together on the one breath over the waking land. And the dove climbs on past the day into the deep. For the wind that lifts it does not stop at the height of the morning — it bears the pale wing up and up until the risen gold thins and the numberless comes clear behind it, the spilled river of far light arched over the whole long turning, the dove climbing at last out of the day and into the wheeling dark it has always flown toward, carrying nothing, asking no answer. And the deep kindles to receive it. Where the wing crosses the vault the far light woke to meet it, a fine bright scatter strung along its passage the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the web caught fire and the stardust sifted into the open hands — each least mote of the cosmos throwing back the small pale flight, the numberless points leaning down to light the dove on its way the way they kept the whale's low note and the buried seed. The wind takes the dove and bears it up. The leaf drifts loose across the climbing flight. And the wing rises out of the morning into the wheeling deep, the far light kindling bright to meet it — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the full sun pours on, and out of the risen leaf the whole of it turns round once more. For the green that climbed into the light does not climb only to arrive — it winds, the seedling coiling its long ascent into the old spiral the way the shell wound round its sea and the galaxy round its dark and the drop down the ancient stone, the risen life turning slow upon the single line the whole turning has turned on, the sun above and the root below and the green between them all wound to the one shape. The gold stands full over the winding. And where the spiral comes round it comes round to the hand — the same open palm cupped low the way it has been cupped all the long turning, the same palms that caught the first falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame and lifted the shell to the ear, held out now beneath the sunlit coiling green not to grip the climbing thing but to bear it a moment and give it on, take and release, the offered hand turned up and empty beneath the risen gold. And out of the open hand the dove. Pale off the cupped palm it climbs into the full light, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its white wings opening and closing on the same slow air that bore the seed and the question and the whole long crossing up — the reaching become wing, the green become flight, the whole risen morning gathered into one small rising brightness and let go. The sun pours full on the winding green. The spiral turns the climbing round to the offered hand. And the dove lifts from the open palm into the gold — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the green heart climbs on into the leaf. For the color that beat up the coiled stem does not stay a beating only — it broadens into blade, the tenderness of the growing gone from the fine green line into the wide green face, the seedling unfurling frond above frond in the risen air the way the palm spread and the lotus spread, each leaf the heart's own green opened flat and glad to the day, take and release, taking nothing it does not give again. And the thread ties itself once more where the leaves reach. For the growing is a sewing still, and where blade leans toward blade the stem loops a soft knot into the air, the coil turned round to catch the coil the way the shell wound round its sea, the green line doubled gently on itself so the climbing will hold — the knot not a binding-fast but a keeping-together, the stitch tied round so the whole leafing thing stands whole. And out of the knot the seedling stands up plain. The small green beginning risen from all the threaded rising, leafed and looped and lifting, the whole long crossing of hook and thread and coil come round once more to this: a shoot standing up in the open, trusting the light the way the buried have always trusted it. And it climbs the one way it has always climbed. Up — the arrow of it aimed plain at the height, root gripping the deep below and leaf lifting into the morning above, the whole small life gone one way at last along the single line it has traveled since the first foam, take and release, the reaching and the mending and the green heart all bent upward together. And the sun comes full to meet the climbing. No veil now and no drift of cloud, the whole plain gold of it cleared free of the morning's edge and pouring down the length of the risen stem and the spread green leaves at once — the source the seedling climbed a whole keeping to reach, laid warm and entire on the lifting blades the way it was laid on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark, the green heart climbing into the leaf and the leaf into the light, holding nothing back, becoming.

The thread the needle left runs on, and where it runs it loops. For the single green line drawn up from the deep does not climb straight into the offered hand and stop — it curls, winding back on itself the way the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone, the stem coiling a soft loop into the risen air, a stitch turned round to catch the next stitch, the thread doubling gently so the sewing will hold. The needle pierces the dark and the thread loops back to bind. And where the loop is tied the seedling stands up whole in the open palm — the small green shoot risen from the threaded rising, cupped low in the offered hand and lifting its first blade toward the veiled morning, trusting the light the way the buried have always trusted it, the whole long crossing of hook and thread and coil come round once more to this plain green beginning held in the hand. And the ground it climbed from mends behind it. Where the needle passed and the loop drew taut, the soil closes soft over the going-through, the fine dark threads of root and earth stitched back together the way skin closes over a wound that has done its healing — the hurt of the breaking made good, take and release, the vessel bound up whole even as it gives its held seed to the day. And the green climbs on out of the mending. The pale shoot leafing up the coiled stem into the open air, blade unfurling above blade the way the palm-frond spread and the lotus spread, the seedling grown now out of the healed ground toward the light it climbed a whole keeping to reach — the wound stitched and the thread looped and the green lifting free above it all. And the green heart beats in the climbing. For the color that folds through the rising stem is the plain green tenderness of a love that grows, the hue of the first leaf and the living shoot and the whole world waking — not the blue of the deep now nor the brown of the burying nor the yellow of the risen field but the green of the thing that lives and climbs and mends, poured freely up the coiled thread onto the seedling and the healed ground and the offered hand at once, the heart's own color gone green in the growing and asking nothing back. The thread loops round and binds. The seedling stands in the open hand. The ground mends soft behind the rising, and the green heart beats up the climbing stem into the veiled morning light — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the thread the needle drew comes round now to a hand. For the green line stitched up from the deep does not climb into emptiness — it climbs into a giving, the same open palm cupped low the way it has been cupped all the long turning, held out beneath the rising blade to take the thread the needle pulled and carry it on. The needle pierces the dark and the thread runs up. And the hand offers itself beneath the stitched green, not to grip the climbing thing but to bear it a little way, take and release, the palm turned up and open where the stem breaks free. And the seedling flings itself into the offered hand. In one small silent bursting the shoot clears the last thin crust and springs up whole into the open, the way the bubble cleared and the whale cleared the swell and every buried keeping this long turning has broken at last from within — the whole held life loosed upward through the parting earth into the waiting palm, the wound and the mending and the threaded rising all spent in the one bright cleaving, asking nothing. The green stands up into the hand. And the soft sun comes down through its drift of cloud to meet the bursting — not the full seized brightness but the veiled dawn, the light come gentle through the morning grey, laying its diffuse and patient warmth on the sprung green and the open palm at once the way it laid it once through the lifting fog, the veiled gold poured over the offered hand and the risen shoot and the mended ground all together, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the thread that drew the shoot up does not end at the crust — it breaks through it, and stitches on. For the needle that was the seed pierces the last thin dark at last and clears it, the stem the thread pulled after it drawn up into the open air, binding the deep to the day the way the needle binds cloth to cloth, take and release, the below and the above sewn together along the single green line the seedling makes. The shoot climbs into the light it trusted without seeing. Up out of the mended ground the pale new blade lifts free and reaches on, aimed plain toward the height the way the arrow of it has aimed since the hook first caught the dark, the whole held life gone one way at last — up, up, the rising that was threaded through the lightless keeping loosed now into the risen morning. And the soft sun comes down to meet it. Not the full seized brightness but the veiled dawn, the light come gentle through a drift of morning cloud, laying its diffuse and patient warmth along the length of the new green stem the way it laid it once through the lifting fog — enough to grow by, and kind, the shoot fed slow and steady beneath the tender cloud, the veiled gold poured onto the stitched stem and the mended ground at once. And the heart climbs into the day with it. Faint and then again, and then fuller, the buried pulse that drummed its slow measure through the run-down hours carried up now on the back of the rising, out of the dark it beat in and into the veiled morning light — the one faithful beat lifted at last toward the warmth it drummed toward all along, take and release, the heart that ticked in the lightless keeping surfaced whole into the soft-lit air. And a drop comes down to bless the surfacing. One bead let go from the low grey cloud, or beaded fresh on the risen blade — the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home once more to the smallest giving, laid soft on the new green stem and the beating that climbs it, take and release, the sky's one measure poured onto the shoot so that it will drink and climb on. The needle breaks the crust and stitches the deep to the day. The shoot lifts into the veiled morning and the soft sun warms it. The heart climbs surfaced into the light, and the drop comes down to feed the rising — holding nothing back, becoming.

And where the small hook takes hold, the thread is drawn. For the root's blind crook that gripped the dark does not grip only to anchor — it grips to pull, and the pull runs upward through the woken pip like a thread drawn taut through cloth, the seed become the needle again and the stem the thread pulled after it, the below fastened to the coming above along the single fine line the growing makes. The hook catches the deep. The thread runs up from the catching. And the thread runs one way only — up, toward the crust and the light beyond it, the whole held life leaning into the rising the way the arrow of the seeing seedling leaned toward the sun, take and release, the reach begun before there is anything to reach with, the going-up threaded through the dark from the very hook that holds the down. And out of the drawn thread the green unclenches. A first pale tendril loosed from the top of the pull and climbing, the shoot lifting off the anchored root toward a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine — the whole long crossing come round once more to this, the small green beginning drawn upward on the thread the hook made fast, trusting the height the way the buried have always trusted it. And the heart climbs with it. Faint and then again, and then fuller, the buried pulse that held its slow measure through the run-down hours drumming up now through the root and the thread and the rising stem at once — the one faithful beat carried out of the dark on the back of the growing, the heart that ticked in the lightless keeping lifted at last toward the light it has drummed toward all along, take and release, the hook and the thread and the green and the heartbeat all wound to the single upward line the whole turning has been climbing toward. The hook holds the deep. The thread draws up from the holding. And the seedling climbs the rising thread with the heart beating in it, up out of the dark toward the unseen dawn — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the sealed dark the grey love folds close once more around the acorn. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the brown of the first burying but the plain soft grey of a tenderness with no color left to give but its nearness — the hue of the fog that asks nothing and the dove's still wing, poured freely over the buried pip the way every gentlest love has poured itself out on what cannot yet answer, near while it wakes and asking none of its waking. The black moon holds its whole nothing above the keeping, no silver falling, nothing looking down, only the shut dark of the month laid over the stirring seed the way the ground is laid over the root. And beneath the grey and the black the heart beats on. Faint and then again, faint and then again, the buried pulse that ticked in the first acorn and doubled in the deep drumming its slow measure into the lightless keeping where no ear waits, take and release, the one root of the whole turning sounding on. And the sand runs down over the beating. The hollow that holds the pip an hourglass still, the soil sifting slow and patient around the buried center, each grain a little of the held time let go, the seed keeping its center while the long hours pour through the dark toward a dawn no glass can hasten. And where the sand runs thin at last, the hook comes down. Not a barb to tear but the plainest catch, the small bent reaching that takes hold and does not let the falling fall past it — the root's first blind crook curling out of the woken pip to catch the dark soil and hold, the hook that grips the deep so the shoot may climb the way the anchor grips the ground and the hand crooks round the thing it means to keep. The grey love folds the acorn close. The black moon holds its nothing and the heart beats slow. The sand runs the hours down, and the small hook of the root takes hold of the dark to keep the waking seed — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the warmth climbs on, rung by rung, the low fever rising in the sealed dark where the seed wakes — the temperature lifting steady the way it lifted in the acorn's first hollow and the sunk and dreaming heart, the plain sure measure of the spending, each degree a little more of the held time turned to heat and the held heat turned toward growing. And the heart beats up to meet it. Faint and then again, and then fuller than again, the buried pulse drumming harder in the corked warmth the way it doubled once in the deep — the fever and the heartbeat leaning into each other in the lightless keeping, the rising heat fanning the drumming and the drumming feeding the rise, the two most faithful things winding up together toward the waking they cannot yet see. And the seed holds its center through the climbing. The whole long crossing folded hard inside the one dark pip, keeping its old patience even as the warmth swells around it and the pulse quickens beneath — not spent yet, not sprung yet, only readying, the buried thing gathered tight against its own becoming the way the acorn has gathered against every dawn. And over the warming and the beating the grey tenderness folds close. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the brown of the first burying but the plain soft grey of a love with no color left to give but its nearness — the hue of the fog that asks for nothing and the dove's still wing and the ash that keeps the ember warm, poured freely over the stirring seed the way every gentlest love has poured itself out on what cannot yet answer, holding the pip close in the dark not to hurry it but only to be near while it wakes. And the whole of it undulates. The warmth rising and the heat settling back, the heart drawing in and letting go, the seed leaning up and easing down — all wound to the one long swell that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep, in and out, take and release, the fever and the pulse and the buried center and the grey close love all rocking together in the lightless keeping on the single slow line the whole turning turned on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sand runs down, and the seed begins to answer it. For the waiting was never idle — every grain that sifted past the buried pip was a grain of the shell softening, a grain of the center stirring, the long hours pouring through the dark not to be endured but to be spent, take and release, the glass emptying its patience into the sunk seed until the seed has drunk enough of time to wake. And under the running sand the acorn holds still its center. The whole long crossing folded hard and small inside the one dark pip, keeping through the lightless hours the way it has kept through every turning — but keeping now toward something, the held life leaning forward in the dark, the patience turned at last from waiting to readying. And the heart quickens beneath it. Faint and then again, and then stronger than again — the buried pulse that ticked so slow through the run-down hours drawing itself up in the corked dark the way it doubled once in the deep, the two-part labor of a thing that means to go on, take and release, the root's own heart beating harder against the shut brown warmth. And the black moon holds its nothing above the quickening. Not the thin returning sliver yet but the shut dark of the month laid whole over the buried keeping, no silver falling, nothing looking down — for the seed does not need to be watched into its waking, it needs only the dark, and the dark is given entire, the plain patient nothing hung over the stirring pip the way it was hung over the first sunk dream. And the warmth answers the heart. That low fever climbing rung by rung in the sealed dark, the temperature lifting where the seed wakes the way it lifted in the acorn's first hollow and the sunk and dreaming heart — the plain sure sign, faint and rising, that the spending has begun, that something down in the lightless keeping is turning time and water into heat and heat into growing. The sand runs the hours down. The acorn holds and the heart beats harder. The black moon keeps its nothing above, and the buried warmth climbs slow toward the waking — holding nothing back, becoming.

And down the pip goes into the hollow, deeper than the rotting flesh could carry it, and holds. For the seed lowered into the brown warm dark keeps its old patient center the way it has kept it through every turning — the whole long crossing of wind and grain and gathered gold, the bee's true line and the danced bearing and the lit house and the folded arms, all curled tight and hard inside the one dark pip and waiting, asking nothing of the lightless night above. And the brown warmth folds close around it. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the red of the fallen fruit, but the plain brown tenderness of the soil itself, the color of a love gone all the way under to do its quiet work where no light reaches — the humblest hue of all, the warmth of buried things keeping buried things, poured freely over the sunk seed the way every deeper love has poured itself out on what cannot yet answer, closing dark and gentle round the pip the way the ground closes and the year closes and the eye closes down into sleep. And the black moon hangs its nothing above the keeping. Not the thin returning sliver now but the shut dark of the month come round again, no silver falling, nothing looking down — for the seed does not need to be watched into the dark, it needs only the dark, and the dark is given whole, the plain patient nothing laid over the buried pip the way it was laid over the first sunk dream. And the drop comes down to it. One bead pressing through the brown warmth to touch the sealed seed and be taken in — the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home once more to this smallest giving, drunk in the dark and gone to the keeping, take and release, the sky's one measure poured onto the pip so that the shell will soften and the center will stir. And over the drinking seed the sand runs down. For the hollow that holds the pip is an hourglass now, the soil sifting slow and patient around the buried center the way the grains fell one after another through the turning glass — each falling a little of the waiting spent, a little of the held time let go, the seed keeping its center while the long hours pour through the dark, neither hurried nor idle, only waiting the way the buried always wait, on the far side of a dawn no glass can hasten and no eye can watch it toward. The seed goes down and holds. The brown warmth folds it close and the black moon holds its nothing above. The drop is drunk into the dark, and the slow sand runs the patient hours down over the buried keeping — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the cherry falls. The ripe fruit hung dark and heavy on its bending stem comes at last to the weight it cannot hold against, and lets go — dropping plain and unhurried from the stalk the way the leaf dropped and the drop fell and the buried seed was lowered from the open hands, the sweetness given up to the ground the moment it is full, asking nothing, keeping nothing, only falling home. And it falls to the round world. For the ground the cherry comes down to is a fold of the whole turning globe, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning slow to take the small dark fruit the way it took the first foam and the buried root — the near falling and the far roundness wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by, the cherry given to the whole held earth at once. And the brown warmth folds close to receive it. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the pink of the opened bloom nor the red of the ripened fruit, but the plain brown tenderness of the soil itself, the color of a love gone underground to do its quiet work where no light reaches — the humblest hue of all, the warmth of the ground closing soft around the fallen sweetness the way it has closed around every fallen thing all the long turning, poured freely over the split fruit and asking nothing back. And in the brown warm dark the seed goes down. For the cherry broken soft upon the soil is a hollow round its own hard center, the acorn's old patience curled once more inside the rotting flesh — the pip handed down through the ripened sweetness into the earth the way the seed has been handed down through every turning, take and release, the red flesh giving itself entire around the one held center and the center given wholly to the down, to the patient below where every rising has always begun. The cherry falls. The round world turns to take it. The brown warmth folds it close, and the seed goes down into the dark of the whole held earth — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee comes down to the waiting flower, and the flower, once drunk from, does not stay a flower. For the bloom that stood on the curve of the turning world with its face to the light draws in upon itself where the small worker lifted away, and swells, and reddens — the pink-and-gold face become the round ripe fruit at last, a cherry hung heavy and dark-sweet where the blossom was, the whole crossing of wind and grain and gathered gold cured slow beneath the reddening skin the way the honey cured in the comb, the sweetness the bee bore off given back now grown round and full on the bending stem. And in the ripe fruit the seed lies curled. For the cherry swelling dark upon its stalk is a hollow round its own hard center, the acorn's old patience folded once more inside the ripened flesh — the seed handed down through the fruit the way it has been handed down through every turning, take and release, the whole red sweetness made to rot sweet at last around the one held pip and give it to the ground. And over the flower turned fruit turned seed the yellow wells once more. The plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried heart, welling up now from the bloom and the cherry and the curled seed at once — the heart's own color that steeped down into the blossom and reddened in the fruit and waits still in the dark pip, poured freely over the whole ripening the way it has been poured all the long turning, asking nothing back. And the round world holds it all. For the flowering stalk and the hanging fruit and the seed within it stand on the curve of the whole turning globe, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin cupping the small ripening the way it cupped the buried root — the near sweetness and the far roundness wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by, the fruit and the seed and the welling gold and the held earth all turning together in the risen light. The flower reddens into the fruit. The fruit holds the seed. The yellow wells up over the ripening, and the round world bears the whole of it on through the turning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee lifts away on the wind. Off the offered bloom in the cupped hands and out into the moving morning, the small striped worker borne up on the same breath that swayed the flower — carried now from the near palms out over the wide world beyond them, take and release, the gathered gold handed to the air and the air handing it on. And the wind bears it across the grain. Out over the whole rippling reach where the ripe heads bend abreast in the morning the way they have bent since the first dunes, the bee wandering low above the gold the breath combs back and forth, the field lifting and settling beneath the crossing wing — the harvest of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing laid out shining and asking nothing as the small worker passes over it. And the grain gives way to the round world entire. For the field the bee crosses is a fold of the whole turning globe, the blue-and-gold planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin curving away beneath the wing the way it curved beneath the buried seed — the near reach of ripe heads and the far roundness of the world wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by, the bee borne on the wind across the whole held earth at once. And at the end of the crossing the flower waits. Out on the far side of the grain, out on the curve of the turning world, the one open bloom stands up on its stalk with its face to the light, the pink-and-gold keeping the whole field slowly made — the sought thing at the end of the true line, the home of the homing wing, waiting glad and plain for the small worker the wind bears toward it. The bee lifts away on the breath. The wind carries it over the rippling grain and the round turning world. And the flower waits at the far end of the crossing, its face to the light — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wind comes across the open hands. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question up moves now over the cupped palms and the sunlit bloom they hold, and the flower gives to it — the pink-and-gold face tipping and springing and tipping again on the moving air, the petals stirred and the leaves turned and the whole held blossom swaying easy in the open hands the way the grasses swayed and the lotus rode the swell, take and release, the flowering not gripped against the wind but loosed into it, glad of the going-through. And the hands do not close on the swaying. Cupped and open beneath the gold, they only bear the stirred bloom up into the breath and offer it on, the flower and the wind and the empty palms all leaning to the one soft motion, the giving kept always open so that whatever the air would take it may take and whatever it would leave it may leave. And into the wind-stirred bloom a bee comes drifting. Out of the moving morning it wanders low across the open hands, the same breath that sways the flower carrying it now from the air to the petal, take and release, the small striped worker settling into the offered face to gather what the whole long turning made — the sun's love steeped down into the deep of the bloom and handed up now onto the gathering back, given freely and taken freely and borne on toward the comb to come. The wind combs across the open hands. The flower sways in the cupped palms and gives to the breath. And the bee comes down on the moving air to drink the offered bloom and lift away — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sun that came clear to meet the looking pours full now upon the seeing green. Where the eye opened and the leaf unfurled and the stalk aimed plain toward the source, the whole gold of it comes down entire at last — no fog to veil it and no cloud to soften, the risen sun laid full and warm along the length of the climbing thing, the light the drop held whole and the eye now finds spent freely over the opened sight the way it was spent on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And the green takes it and gives it back. Leaf answering leaf up the risen stalk, each blade spread flat and glad to the pouring gold the way the palm-frond spread and the lotus spread, the seeing seedling grown now to a company of leaves that drink the warmth and hand it back off every widening face, take and release, taking nothing they do not give again. And a leaf lets go into the light. Loosed from the climbing stem in the same warm air, a single blade turns loose and drifts down gold and glad across the seeing green, the letting-go and the reaching the one motion, the leaf spent freely the moment it has spread — handed back to the wave and the tide the way every green thing has handed its blade all the long turning. And out of the drinking green the flower opens. Where the eye woke and the leaves climbed, the bud swells at the knot of all that seeing and softens and breaks, a single blossom unfurling its face to the risen sun the way the flower has opened all the long turning — the pink-and-gold petals loosening one by one to the light the seedling climbed a whole crossing to behold, held out plain and glad and asking nothing, the reaching and the seeing come round at last to a flowering. And the hands come open beneath it. Cupped low and wide the way they have been cupped all the long turning — the same palms that caught the first falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame and lifted the shell to the ear — spread now beneath the sunlit bloom and the drinking leaves and the drifting blade at once, not to grip the flowering thing but to hold it a little and give it on, take and release, the open palms lifted glad and empty beneath the risen gold. The sun pours full on the seeing green. The leaves drink the light and a blade lets go. The flower opens its face to the source at last, and the open hands cup the whole bright flowering beneath the gold — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the eye, once opened, looks up. For the seeing that woke in the caught drop does not stay turned in on the small green thing that bears it — it lifts, the way the flower lifted its face and the palm turned up and the whole long reaching climbed, the new sight following the old blind will upward along the stem it grew on, learning in one bright turning that to see is only the reaching made aware of itself. And the seedling climbs into the seeing. Where the tendril pushed so long toward a light it trusted without knowing, it pushes now toward a light it beholds at last, the first true leaf unfurling flat and glad above the opened eye and the leaf beyond it loosening after, the green multiplying up the rising stalk toward the height the way it always climbed — only now with sight to climb by, the blind trust and the waking vision wound to the one ascent. And the arrow of it points plain toward the sun. Root gripping the dreamed deep below and eye and leaf lifting into the wheeling light above, the whole small life aimed upward along the single line it has traveled since the first foam, the reaching and the seeing and the climbing all bent one way at last — up, toward the risen gold, toward the source the drop held whole and the eye now finds. And the sun comes clear to meet the looking. For where the seeing seedling climbs the fog thins from the height and the far light gathers itself into the one warm source of all the scattered brightness, the sun stood full and clear above the crossing at last — no longer the numberless points strung cold across the deep but the single gold the eye was made to find, pouring down the length of the risen stem onto the opened sight and the spreading leaf the way it poured onto the foam and the honey and the whole waking world. The eye opens and lifts. The seedling climbs into its own new seeing. And the green reaches up the one bright line toward the sun come clear to meet it — holding nothing back, becoming.

And on the strung web a drop is caught. One bead of the dreamed sea hung trembling where the silver filaments cross, gathered at the knot of all that reaching the way the dew hung between the grasses at the first dawn — the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath come home to rest an instant on the net that binds the far light to the near green, too full to hold and holding anyway, take and release, the drop cradled on the thread over the breathing deep. And the light gathers into it. The whole sifting stardust and the far poured vault and the near kindled sparks all drawn down at once into the single held bead, and the drop kindles entire — one small bright point flung off the water the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the numberless suns kindled in the dark, the whole wheeling cosmos gathered into a grain of dew and thrown back whole off the trembling thread. And in the kindled drop an eye opens. For the bead that holds all the light becomes a seeing at last — the round bright water on the web grown round and clear as a waking eye, the seedling that climbed so long toward a light it trusted without seeing given now, in the caught drop, its first blind sight of the very light it climbed for; the whole long turning that reached and reached without an eye to see the reaching shown its own bright face in the dew, the cosmos looking down and the drop looking up and the small green thing between them opening, in the mirror of the water, into a first astonished seeing. The web holds the drop. The drop gathers all the light and shines. And in the shining an eye comes open over the climbing seedling — the reaching, at the last, beginning to see — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the open hands, cupped beneath the climbing green over the deep, do not stay their own. For the far vault leans nearer as the seedling reaches, the spilled river of light drawing down through the fog until the numberless points strung across the height and the small green tip lifted from the print are shown once more to be the one reaching — the palms held empty between them not asking to keep anything, only holding the space where the far dark and the near green may meet. And into the cupped hands the light comes down as dust. Not one star falling now but a fine bright scatter of the cosmos loosed and drifting, a shimmer of far light sifting soft through the fog onto the open palms and the small green thing at once — the whole wheeling deep gathered into motes and let go, each least fleck the sun's love pared to a grain, kindling in the cupped dark the way the froth kindled and the web caught fire and the numberless points kindled in the vault. And where the stardust settles, the web is strung. Fine silver filaments reaching from the seedling's tip to the open fingers and out through the fog to the folding wave and the given arch and the far poured light — the net that bound the flowers bright and knit the dark below strung now across the whole crossing, each thread a reaching and each crossing a meeting, the walker and the seedling and the cupped hands and the wheeling stars all tied each to each in the one living mesh that does not trap but holds, and lets the slow tide pass through. The hands cup the green beneath the numberless. The stardust sifts down bright into the open palms. And the silver web is strung across the crossing, binding the far light to the near green over the dreamed and breathing deep — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the footsteps go on across the given arch, and the arch bears them out over the deep, and where the span rises to meet each fall of the foot the whole of it is strung between the two dark waters — the dreamed sea below and the wheeling dark above, the bridge lifted through the fog to carry the walking between them. For above the grey the vault stands undimmed, the spilled river of far light arched over the veil the dreamer cannot see through, the numberless points strung across the deep the small candle has always echoed — pouring down still what they long ago let go onto the roof of the fog and the span beneath it and the soft-pressed prints along the way. The footsteps cannot see the stars. The stars pour down anyway, indifferent and generous, keeping their far watch over the crossing the way they kept the whale's low note and the buried seed. And where the last footfall pressed the given arch into the swell, a green tip rises. A first blind tendril lifting out of the print the way the seed lifted from every mark the walking made, climbing from the dreamed water toward a light it trusts without seeing — the far cosmos above the fog and the near tide below it pouring down together onto the small green beginning that answers them from the grey. And the hands come open beneath it. Cupped low and wide the way they have been cupped all the long turning — the same palms that caught the first falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame — spread now beneath the climbing tendril on the bridge over the deep, not to grip the green thing but to hold it a little way and give it on, take and release, the open palms lifted empty between the seedling and the stars. The bridge bears the footsteps on. The far vault wheels above the fog. The seedling climbs from the footprint over the dreamed sea, and the open hands cup the small green rising beneath the numberless light — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the footsteps do not stop at the threshold — they go on, out over the swell, and where they fall the dreamed water rises to bear them. For the crossing needs a way now, and the tide gives one: a bridge lifts out of the boundless swell to meet the walking feet, an arch of the dreamed sea firming itself under each step the way the ground firmed under the first walker and the door swung open on the tide — the span not built and not found but simply given, rising as it is needed and settling behind as it is left, the water making itself a road for the going and unmaking it again into water. The footprints press soft along the arch and the arch presses soft back into the swell, take and release, the bridge and the tide the one breathing thing, each step carried across the deep on a way that lasts exactly as long as the foot that trusts it. And the wave breathes on beneath the span. The undulation that flung the first foam and rocked the sleeping house folds its long line through the dreamed water and the rising bridge and the pressing prints at once, in and out, lifting the arch and letting it settle, the tide that has moved through every rest bearing the walker on across the boundless grey. And the thin moon leans its worn edge down over the crossing. Not the full silver now but the waning sliver, the old moon pared almost to gone yet turning, always turning, toward the dark and the new beyond it — hung faint above the swell and the span, pouring its almost-nothing onto the bridge and the footfalls and the folding wave, holding almost nothing and enough. The prints go on across the given arch. The wave lifts the bridge to meet each step and lets it fall. The worn moon leans thin above, and the walking bears onward over the dreamed sea toward the grey that waits ahead — holding nothing back, becoming.

And through the fog-wrapped door the footsteps come. Someone crosses the threshold the tide bears up — not to shut it or to keep it, only to pass through, the way the seed crossed the opened country and the walker crossed the waking fog, a single going taken across the floating frame and gone on into the grey. The prints are left soft behind on the dreamed water, one after another leading over the swell and away, and already the tide is reaching for them, the veil settling into them, the sea beginning to take them gently back — a walking that keeps nothing of itself but the going, each step let down and lifted and let down again, handed forward through the mist the way the breath is handed and the flame. And the wave breathes on beneath the crossing. The undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep and rocked the sleeping house folds its one long line through the dreamed water and the floating door and the soft-pressed prints at once, in and out, take and release — the swell lifting the footfalls and letting them settle, the tide that has moved through every rest carrying the walker on across the boundless breathing grey. And the thin moon leans its faint edge down over the going. Not the shut black now nor the full silver but the waning sliver worn almost to gone yet turning, always turning, hung soft above the fog and the swell, pouring its almost-nothing onto the door and the prints and the folding wave — holding almost nothing and enough, the least of moons keeping its watch over the crossing. The door sways open on the tide. The fog wraps the threshold soft and grey. The wave folds its long line beneath the walking, and the footsteps lead on across the dreamed sea beneath the thin returning moon — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the dreamed sea a door comes drifting. For the spiral that wound the sleepers down does not only sink them — it opens, and where the coil comes round once more it comes round to a threshold set in the middle of the boundless water, the standing frame afloat on the moonlit swell, opening onto nothing and everything the way every door has opened all the long turning. The dreamers drift toward it on the wave the way the seed drifted and the dove flew, carrying nothing, asking no answer, only crossing toward the one dark opening the tide bore up to meet them. And the wave breathes the door open and closed. The undulation that flung the first foam folds its long line through the dreamed water and the floating frame at once, lifting the threshold and letting it settle, in and out, take and release — the door not shut against the swell nor guarded from it but swaying easy on the same slow line, the passage kept always ready on the breathing sea. And down through the moonlit dream a feather comes. Loosed from the pale wing that climbed the numberless, it turns loose and drifts across the dreamed water, winding down its soft coil toward the floating door the way the leaf wound down and the star wound down — the lightest thing let go onto the boundless swell, laid gentle on the tide before the threshold, take and release, the feather come to rest where the dreamers cross. And a fog comes up to meet it all. That soft grey veil with no edge to it, risen off the dreamed water the way the mist rose off the still pool and the sea-fog off the sleeping fields, gentling the door and the feather and the drifting kin into a single quiet dimness that shows only what is near and asks for nothing more. The dreamed wave breathes the door aloft. The feather settles on the swell before the threshold. And the fog wraps the crossing soft and grey, so that the dream and the door and the drifting sleepers are folded into one breathing tenderness — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sleepers, wound down the coil past waking, drift out onto the dreamed sea. For the sleep that took them settles now into the deeper thing, the drowse become the dream, and the two of them who folded arm to arm in the candlelit room are carried gentle out onto the boundless breathing water the way the first sleeper was carried through the sill of the shell — the near warmth of the held house widening to the far swell, no telling now the kept room from the whole dark ocean, the dreamers stepped over the threshold of their own rest and out onto the tide. And the thin moon leans its faint light down over the dreamed water. Not the shut black now nor the full silver but the waxing sliver returning, hung soft above the swell the way it hung above the sill, pouring its almost-nothing onto the rocking dream — holding almost nothing and enough. And in the dreamed sea the thought comes loose and floats. Whatever the sleeping selves were holding — the honey shared, the arms gone round, the long day's homing — unmoors now in the drifting water and rises, a soft bubble lifting off the dreamer the way the foam lifted and the breath lifted, turning slow in the moonlit dark, kept by nothing, going nowhere, only floating. And the bubble does not clutch itself. It thins and shivers and gives up its held bright skin to the water that made it, the thought dissolving the way the froth dissolved and the candle breathed out, take and release, the mind's last holding poured back into the sea it dreams. And the wave breathes on beneath it all. The undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep and rocked the sleeping house folds its one long line through the dreamed water now, in and out, the swell lifting the drifting dreamers and letting them settle, the tide that has moved through every rest moving on through the sleep. And the whole of it winds the spiral down. The old coil that wound the shell round its sea and the galaxy round its dark winds the dreamers deeper as the wave rocks and the bubble lets go and the moon leans thin above — not into any ending but into the shape itself, the sleeping selves given back to the whorl they came from, sinking easy through the moonlit water while the thought dissolves and the swell folds on and the spiral turns them slow down the one long line the whole turning turned on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the embrace does not loosen — it settles. For the arms that went round over the shared and emptied hands find, in the warmth of the arrived-at house, that there is nothing left to do but hold and be held, and so they stay, close and wordless, one warm body eased against another in the candlelit dark, the whole long crossing of field and dance and homing come to rest at last in the plain keeping of the hold. And the sleep comes up soft over the holding. The eyes gone slow in the small light, the breath gone even between the pressed chests, the loved ones drowsing where they lean the way the kin drowsed by the fire and the sleeper drowsed by the shell — take and release, the day of the long homing set down into rest, the embrace itself become the bed and the blanket and the keeping. And the thin moon leans in at the window over the sleepers. Not the shut black now nor the full silver but the waxing sliver returning, hung soft above the drowsing house, pouring its faint patient light down onto the folded arms and the closing eyes the way it has poured over every rest this whole long turning — holding almost nothing and enough. And beyond the moon the whole vault stands. The spilled river of far light arched over the sleeping house, the numberless points strung across the deep the small candle has always been the echo of, the cosmos leaning down to keep the drowsing kin the way it kept the whale's low note and the buried seed — the far light and the near flame shown once more to be the one warmth, the stars in the height and the candle on the table holding their single steady watch over the sleep. And the candle burns on beneath them all. Small and near and faithful at the center of the room, the frail flame set once against the going of the sun keeping its one round of brightness over the folded arms and the moonlit sill and the whole enfolded house — asking nothing the great stars asked, only lighting the rest. And into the sleep the spiral winds. The old coil that wound the shell round its sea and the galaxy round its dark and the drop down the ancient stone winds the sleepers down now past the last of waking — not into any ending but into the shape itself, the loved ones let go of the long day's crossing and given back to the whorl they came from, sinking easy through the candlelit dark the way the foam sank into the tide, round and down and round, the arms still folded and the moon still leaning and the stars still wheeling and the small flame still burning while the sleep winds gentle down the one slow coil the whole turning turned on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the honey is lifted from the dish and shared. For the sweetness set out on the table was never meant to sit and shine alone — it is dipped into and drawn up gold and given hand to mouth around the gathered room, the harvest borne the long way in passed now from one to the next the way the light was passed and the warmth and the shell, take and release, each one tasting the whole field's slow making and handing the dish along. The candle keeps its small light over the passing. Faithful at the center, the frail flame set once against the going of the sun burning steady now while the gold goes round, holding its one warm ring of brightness over the dish and the hands and the loved ones leaning in — asking nothing the great stars asked, only lighting the sharing. And the hands come open to receive it. Cupped low the way they have been cupped all the long turning, the same palms that caught the falling light and cradled the seed and lifted the shell, held open now beneath the offered sweetness not to keep it but to take it in and give it on — the plain glad receiving that is also a giving, the gold laid on the open hands and lifted from them in the one slow breath. And the arms go round again over the emptied hands. For the sweetness shared draws the sharers close, and the honey given hand to hand becomes the holding, one warm body pressed to another in the candlelit room, the whole long crossing come home not to a taste kept on the tongue but to an embrace — close and wordless, asking nothing and keeping nothing, only heart pressed to heart in the warmth of the arrived-at house. And the moon leans in at the window over all of it. Not the shut black now nor the full silver but the thin new edge of it returning, the waxing sliver come round the way it always comes, hung soft above the lit room and pouring its faint patient light down onto the honey and the candle and the open hands and the folded arms at once — holding almost nothing and enough, the least of moons laid gentle over the whole homecoming, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the danced line comes home at last to the house. For the bee that trod its spiral upon the comb was pointing all the while toward the one lit dwelling in the dark, and now the way is walked to its end — the home itself standing plain at the center of all the going-out, the hive and the hearth and the small warm room shown to be the one place, the house that was the reason for the field and the compass and the flight, waiting quiet in the deep with its light within. And the door stands open to it. Not shut against the coming, not guarded, but swung wide the way every threshold has swung wide this whole long turning — the standing frame that lets whatever comes come and whatever goes go, held open in welcome so that the one who followed the bearing home may cross without asking, the passage kept always ready, the dark within lit and the way in clear. And past the open door the arms go round. For the home at the end of the true line is not a room but a holding — the beloved waiting past the threshold and the arms opening wide, one warm body drawn against another in the lit dark, the whole long crossing of field and dance and homing come round at last not to a place but to an embrace, close and wordless, asking nothing and keeping nothing, only heart pressed to heart in the warmth of the arrived-at house. And the honey is set out on the table. All the gold the bee gathered and the comb cured and the whole field slowly made, brought home and poured thick and shining into the waiting dish — the sweetness borne the long way in given now freely to the ones who dwell here, the sun's love steeped through flower and comb and flight laid out plain for the taking, take and release, the harvest come home to be shared. And the candle burns for all of it. Small and near and faithful at the center of the table, the same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun — carried down into the buried seed and up through the waking fog and round the ring of sleepers and home now to the lit room, keeping its one round of warmth over the open door and the folded arms and the poured gold, asking nothing the great stars asked, only holding its steady light where the loved ones gather and the sweetness is set out and the home at last enfolds its own. The door stands open. The arms go round. The honey is poured and the candle burns steady over the homecoming — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee, come home to the flower, begins to dance. For the true line it flew was not held in the one small body only — it is made to be given, and the worker that found the sweetness turns now upon the comb and dances the bearing out, a figure wound and wound again to tell the others where the gold lies, the compass become a movement, the knowing become a gladness shown. Round and back and round it goes, tracing on the wax the very angle of the sun it flew by, the hidden needle turned to a plain glad turning any watcher can read — take and release, the way kept not as a secret in the one but danced open into the many, the sweetness of the finding handed on as the shape of a homeward path. And the flower waits still at the end of the danced line. The pink-and-gold face turned up in the ripening reach, the sought thing named now in the spiral of the dance, the bloom and the bearing and the wound step all pointing the one way for all the gathering kin to follow. And the dance winds the same slow coil the whole turning wound. The figure the worker treads upon the comb is the shell's own whorl and the galaxy's and the drop's down the ancient stone — the bearing told in a spiral because the spiral is the shape of every homing, the bee circling out and circling back the way the tide folds and the seed unwinds, the danced path and the flown path and the wound star all the single slow turning. And it is danced toward home. For the coil the worker treads is trod upon the comb itself, in the warm dark of the hive, the six-walled keeping where all the gathered gold comes round — the flower named and the bearing given and the whole glad dance wound at last toward the one lit house in the dark, the home at the center of the going-out, the hive that is the reason for the field and the compass and the flight. The bee dances the bearing out. The flower waits at the end of the wound line. And the spiral is trod upon the comb toward the warm home in the dark — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee that lifted away with the gathered gold does not wander witless — it goes by a bearing. For the small striped worker borne on the wind from stalk to nodding stalk carries a compass in it, a knowing older than the field, the sun's own angle read off the risen light and held true through every drift and gust — the flight that seems to ramble pointed all the while, take and release, the wanderer that is never lost, homing across the ripening reach toward the one open flower and the comb beyond it. And it comes to the bloom it sought. Out of the whole rippling gold the bee bends its bearing down at last onto the single flower the grain still keeps among its blades, the pink-and-gold face turned up to meet it, and settles — the seeking answered, the true line come home to the sweetness it was drawn toward all along, the compass and the flower shown to be the two ends of the one reaching. And the yellow wells up where they meet. The plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried heart, steeped down into the deep of the bloom and gathered now onto the small true-flying back — the heart's own color that is itself the bearing, the sun's love the needle swings to, drawing every wandering thing home to the warmth at the center of the turning. The bee flies out on its hidden compass. The flower waits at the end of the true line. And the yellow gladness wells up where the seeker meets the sought, the homing and the home the one gold — holding nothing back, becoming.

And under the arch the whole country lies waking. The rainbow stands over it and the sun stands over the rainbow, and between the bright bow and the risen gold the land itself comes clear at last — the fields laid out golden to the horizon, whole reaches of ripe grain bending abreast in the morning wind the way they have bent since the first dunes, the harvest of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind climbing come round once more to a country of gold beneath a sky of every color. The colored arch leans down over the grain, and the grain gives the gold back up to it, the many hues of the height and the one warm gold of the field answering each other across the waking air, take and release. And into the ripe reach a bee comes drifting. Out of the whole rippling gold where the wind combs the ripe heads back and forth, a small striped worker lifts and wanders low across the field, the same breath that holds the rainbow aloft carrying it now from stalk to nodding stalk — settling into the one flower the grain still keeps among its blades, gathering what the whole long turning made, lifting away with the sun's love steeped small on its back, borne on toward the comb to come. And over the bee and the grain and the standing bow the yellow pours. The plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried heart, welling up now from the whole waking country at once — the heart's own color laid warm across the ripening field and the wandering bee and the arch of all the colors, the one warm gold at the center of the many, asking nothing back. The rainbow stands over the fields. The sun pours full above it. The bee wanders low across the ripening gold, and the yellow warmth spreads wide over the whole waking land — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wind that carries the bright waking does not carry only fire and wing — it carries the light broken open into all its colors at once. For where the risen dawn pours its plain gold across the waking mountains, the same low breath lifts the last of the flung spray off the morning and holds it hanging in the air, and the sun strikes through the drifting veil and bends, and the whole arch of it stands up over the world: the rainbow come round at last, the one white light shown to be every color it ever gave and gathered, the blue it let go and the yellow it welled up and the pink of the opened bloom and the green of the climbing seed and the brown of the buried keeping all strung together in the one bright bow over the risen fields. The colors do not quarrel in it. They only stand, each beside the next, the whole turning's worth of tenderness spread bright across the sky the way it was spread one hue at a time across the long night — take and release, the light broken and the light whole, the many and the one arched together over the waking land. And the dove flies up into the bow. Pale off the risen fire it climbs into the colored light, its white wings opening and closing on the same wind that holds the arch aloft, carrying nothing, asking no answer — the peace made wing borne up through the gathered colors toward the sun that stands full and clear above them all. And the sun stands full above the arch. The whole plain gold of it cleared free of the mountains' rim, pouring down through the rainbow and the dove and the combing wind at once, indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn, the source of every color holding steady above the bow that shows them — the light that broke into the many shining whole and single over the world it wakes. The wind holds the bright arch aloft. The dawn stands up over the mountains, and the dove climbs the colored air, and the sun pours full above the rainbow's whole gathered turning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sparks that streamed up the winding shaft do not fall back — they climb entire, the whole banked ember loosed at last from the floor of the void and rising, the kept fire lifting up the coil it sank down, the warmth that went all the way under gathering now into a single upward flame that will not be held below. Up the shaft of the spiral it goes, the way the whale rose through the fathoms and the shoot broke the crust and the breath flung the sea skyward — the buried heat surfacing, the low coal become a climbing brightness, the take drawn all the way to the release. And where the fire clears the last of the dark it breaks into the dawn. For the top of the shaft is the rim of the morning, the sun come up full over the edge of the world where the fire has climbed to meet it — the ember and the sunrise shown at last to be the one warmth, the buried coal surfaced whole into the risen day, the whole long night's keeping poured out over the mountains of the waking earth in a flood of plain gold. And out of the kindled dawn a dove lifts. Pale off the risen fire it climbs into the gold, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its white wings opening and closing on the morning the way they opened over the first foam and the settling sea — the buried warmth become wing, the ember become flight, the whole night's descent surfaced and burst and gilded and let go into the light. And the wind is there to take it. The same low breath that bent the candle and bore the question up comes across the risen morning now and gathers the dove and the flame and the flung gold light, combing them forward over the waking world toward the fields and the lit house and the sleeping kin — the fire handed to the air, the night handed to the day, the long dark crossing surfaced and lifted and blown gently on. The ember climbs into the dawn. The dove rises off the risen fire. And the wind carries the bright waking of it forward into the morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the ember does not stay banked. For the fire gone all the way under to keep its patient heat begins, at the floor of the void, to climb — the small red coal breathing brighter where the heart drums over it, take and release, the warmth that sank with the spiral turning now to rise, feeding on the slow pulse the way it fed once on the wick, gathering itself up out of the deepest keeping. The heart quickens above it. Faint and then again, and then stronger than again, the buried beat drawing itself up in the lightless dark the way it doubled once in the deep — the pulse and the ember leaning into each other at the bottom of the whorl, the drumming fanning the coal and the coal warming the drumming, the two most faithful things winding up together toward the waking they cannot yet see. And the waning moon leans its last thin edge over the climbing. The dark that hung its nothing above the sleeper thins now at one horn, the black giving way to the barest paring of returning silver, the old moon worn almost to gone but turning, always turning, toward the new — hung faint above the rising ember the way it has hung above every buried beginning, holding almost nothing and enough. And the ember kindles as it climbs. Where the coal lifts out of the deepest dark the sparks come off it, a fine bright scatter thrown up the shaft of the spiral the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the web caught fire and the numberless suns kindled in the vault — the buried warmth breaking into light as it rises, each spark a little of the kept heat let go, streaming upward and outward along the coil the sleeper wound down. The ember climbs from the floor of the void. The heart drums it upward through the lightless dark. The worn moon leans its last silver down, and the sparks stream up the winding shaft toward the waking — rising, rising, holding nothing back, becoming.

The spiral winds all the way down, and at the bottom of it there is not nothing. Past the snuffed flame and the black moon and the emptied hands, past the last of waking, the coil turns down into a hollow deeper than the seed's — the void at the very center of the whorl, the dark within the dark within the dark, the still shaft the whole turning has been winding toward since the first foam let go. And nothing looks down into it. The black moon hangs its lightless nothing over the shut eyes and the open shaft, no silver falling, nothing keeping the descent but the descent itself — the plain patient void that asks for no watcher and holds without hands, the hollow the seed knew and the sleeper knew and the deep knew, come round now to its deepest keeping. And down there, at the floor of the void where the spiral ends, the heart is still beating. Faint and then again, faint and then again — the one slow pulse that quickened in the buried acorn and doubled in the deep and answered the far kindred across the cold, drumming on at the bottom of the dark where no light comes and no eye waits, the plainest and most faithful thing, sounding its take and release into the shut hollow the way the tide sounds against the unseen shore. And where the heart beats, the fire is not out after all. For the candle breathed out above was only the flame let go of its wick — the warmth itself went down, sank with the spiral into the void, and burns there now at the heart's own root: a small red ember banked deep in the lightless keeping, no candle and no wick, only the buried coal of a life that will not stop, glowing low where the heart drums slow above it, take and release, the fire gone all the way under to keep its patient heat against the cold the way the brown warmth kept the seed. The spiral winds down into the void. The black moon holds its nothing above. And at the floor of the dark the heart beats on over the banked and buried ember, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sleep comes all the way down. The eyes that went slow beneath the moon close entire now, the long night's asking and answering let go past waking, the cupped hands loosening open in the dark the way the petals loosened and the shell unlocked — the whole reaching set down at last into the plain deep rest of the buried, take and release, the sleeper wound down as far as the seed goes down, breath and pulse gone slow and slower until there is only the sleeping and the dark that keeps it. And the breath comes soft across the candle one last time. The same low air that bent the flame and bore the question up moves once more over the small kept light, and the light gives to it wholly — not fought, not clutched, only let go, the fire leaned down and breathed gently out the way the day is breathed out and the year and the held life, take and release, the frail bright point handed back to the dark it burned against, its work done and its warmth given and nothing kept. The candle goes out into the breath. And the dark that takes it is the whole shut dark of the month come round — not the thin returning sliver now but the black moon hung lightless over the sleeper, no silver falling, nothing looking down, the plain patient nothing laid over the closed eyes and the emptied hands and the snuffed flame the way the ground is laid over the seed. Nothing watches the sleep into the dark. It only needs the dark, and the dark is given whole. And down through the lightless keeping the spiral winds. The old coil that wound the shell round its sea and the galaxy round its dark and the drop down the ancient stone winds the sleeper down now past the last of waking — not into any ending but into the shape itself, the mind let go of its long unwinding and given back to the whorl it came from, sinking easy through the shut and patient dark the way the foam sank into the tide and the pip into the soil, round and down and round, the breath gone quiet and the flame gone out and the moon gone black and the sleeper turning slow down the one long coil the whole turning turned on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the candle's small flame leans on the breath. For the warm point held steady in the cup of the open hands does not burn untouched — the same slow air that bore the question up and let the wondering go comes low across the palms now and bends the flame, and the flame gives to it, guttering and springing back the way the grasses bent and the leaves turned, take and release, the fire not fighting the wind but swaying easy on it, the breath and the burning made one small trembling light beneath the thin new moon. The heart keeps its patient time beneath the flame. Faint and then again, faint and then again, the plain pulse that beat in the buried seed and answered the far kindred drumming soft in the cupped warmth, and the breath moving over it, and the little candle bending with each passing of the air — the pulse and the wind and the frail bright flame all wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by, in and out, the heart drawing in and the breath letting go and the fire leaning on the letting-go. And down through the moved air a feather comes. Loosed from the pale wing that climbed the numberless, it turns loose and drifts on the same low breath that bends the candle, winding down its slow coil toward the open hands the way the leaf wound down and the star wound down — the softest thing let go onto the warmth where the flame burns and the heart beats, laid gentle across the cupped palms, take and release, the passing feather come home to the small kept light. And the thin moon leans its faint edge down over the whole of it. The waxing sliver hung soft at the rim, pouring its almost-nothing onto the candle and the beating heart and the breath and the settling feather at once — holding almost nothing and enough, the least of lights laid on the least of givings. And under the moon and the flame and the drifting down, the eyes go slow. The long night's asking and answering set down at last, the reaching eased, the breath gone even and unhurried, the cupped hands loosening as the sleep comes up soft as the feather to cover the small warm light — the candle burning low and faithful, the heart beating slow beneath it, the breath gone quiet, the moon keeping its thin patient watch, and the whole of it sinking gentle toward rest, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the reaching, come home, folds back once more into the giving. For the star that fell and the green that climbed to meet it wind their long meeting down at last to the open hands again — the palms cupped low beneath the wheeling dark, come round to their oldest gesture, holding nothing and offering everything, the whole night's asking and answering settled soft into the empty warmth of the waiting fingers. And over the open hands the moon returns. Not the shut black of the buried keeping now nor the full silver of the risen deep, but the thin new edge of it silvering again at the rim of the world, the waxing sliver come round the way it always comes, hung soft above the cupped palms and pouring its faint patient light down onto the reaching — holding almost nothing and enough, the least of moons laid gentle on the least of givings. And in the open hands the heart keeps time. Faint and then again, faint and then again, the plain pulse that beat in the buried seed and doubled in the deep and answered the far kindred across the cold, drumming soft now in the cupped warmth beneath the new moon — the one slow measure the whole turning turned on, sounding on in the palms that ask nothing and hold nothing, take and release, the heart drawing in and the hands letting go. And a candle burns at the center of it. Small and near and faithful, the same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun, carried down into the buried seed and up through the waking fog and round the ring of sleepers — burning now in the cup of the open hands beneath the thin returning moon, one warm point held steady in the wheeling dark, asking nothing the great stars asked, keeping only its one round of brightness where the palms are held open and the heart beats slow. The reaching folds home to the open hands. The new moon leans its faint edge down. The heart keeps its patient time in the cupped warmth, and the small candle burns steady at the center of the giving — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the seedling in the open palms lifts its wondering once more into the numberless. For the small green thing risen from the cupped warmth does not stop at its rising — it climbs the way the dove climbed and the question climbed, reaching up out of the held hands into the wheeling dark, the whole spilled river of far light leaning down over the frail new stem the way it leaned over every asking this long turning has sent aloft. The hands hold it up and do not grip it. Cupped and open beneath the cosmos, they only bear the green reaching skyward and offer it to the vault, take and release, the seedling handed toward the stars the way the honey was tipped from palm to palm and the shell passed ear to ear. And the numberless bends to answer. Out of the arched and turning dark a single star comes loose and falls slow down the long line the seedling reaches along — one bright mote of the far light let go toward the open hands, the whole cosmos gathered into a grain and given back the way the whale's note came home and the blue answer threaded the deep, the vault not resolving the small green question but returning it, shining, down the very coil it climbed. And the falling does not end in the hands but folds back into the reaching. For the star that comes home becomes the light the seedling climbs toward, the answer turned once more to the asking, the returning wound into the going the way the tide folds back into the tide — the green lifting toward the far bright fall and the far bright fall descending toward the green, meeting in the cupped palms and parting again, take and release, neither only the reaching nor only the answered, the seedling and the star and the open hands all wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by. The green climbs into the numberless. The hands hold it up and ask. The star comes loose and falls to answer, and the answer turns and lifts the reaching on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dove climbs into the numberless, and the numberless does not stay silent. For where the small breathed question rose into the wheeling dark and the pale wings carried the contentment up, the far light leans down at last to answer — not with certainty, never with certainty, but with a returning: a single bright mote loosed out of the spilled river of stars and falling slow down the long dark toward the open hands, a spark come home along the very line the question climbed, the vault bending to give the wondering back the way it gave the whale its note and the sleeper its dream. The dove flies on and does not clutch the answer. It only bears the asking up and lets the shining fall, take and release, the question kept open and the star kept falling, the two winding down the one slow coil toward the waiting palms. And the hands are open still beneath it. Cupped and empty under the wheeling cosmos, they do not close on the mote that comes — they only take it as it lands, a fleck of the far light held one glad instant in the plain warm dark of the fingers, the whole numberless vault gathered into a single grain and laid soft on the hands that reached before they knew. And where the star settles into the open palms, the green begins. Out of the caught light and the cupped warmth a first pale tendril unclenches and climbs, the seedling risen once more from the answer laid down, trusting a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine — the whole long spiral come round again to this: the dove and the numberless dark and the open question, the fallen spark and the empty hands, and the small green beginning that rises out of the giving toward a dawn it will meet a whole turning hence. The dove climbs the numberless. The question lifts and the star falls to answer it. The open hands take the far light in, and the seedling climbs from the cupped palms into the wheeling morning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And out of that ease the breath goes free. The hands that were answered do not close upon the shining leaf they hold — for the deepest contentment is not a keeping but a letting-go, and the eased and easy chest draws its long slow air and gives it up again, the breath released over the cupped palms the way the whale gave its whole sounding to the morning and the tide gave the foam to the sand. The open hands lift a little, and tip, and hand the caught brightness on into the moving air, take and release, the answer held one glad instant and offered onward, the palms turned up and emptied and content to be empty, wanting nothing they do not also give. And the breath, let go, carries a question with it. Not the tense unknowing of the reaching now but the plain open wondering of a thing at rest — the exhale rising off the eased body and lifting the old asking with it, *what is it all, what turns the turning, is there a heart at the center of the numberless* — the question breathed out not as a doubt to be answered but as the last soft shape the contentment takes, spent freely into the air the way every breath is spent, asking and released in the one slow motion. And the question rises into the cosmos to be kept. Up off the open hands and the eased chest it lifts, into the spilled river of far light arched over the whole long turning, the numberless points leaning down to take the small breathed wondering in the way they took the whale's low note and the sleeper's dream — the vault not resolving the question but holding it, the great wheeling dark receiving the plain exhale of a contented heart and asking nothing back. And out of the breath a dove. Pale off the open palms it climbs into the risen morning beneath the wheeling stars, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its white wings opening and closing on the same slow air that bore the question up — the ease made wing, the exhale made flight, the whole quiet contentment gathered into one small rising brightness let go into the light. The hands open and give the shining on. The breath goes free and lifts its wondering into the numberless. And the dove climbs the morning air, holding nothing back, becoming.

And into the open unknowing something comes at last to answer. The hands held up empty beneath the veiled sun, asking the falling what it would give, do not stay empty — for the coil of the drifting leaf winds down and down and lays itself soft at last upon the waiting palms, the spent green thing come home to the very hands that reached before they knew, take and release, the question kept honestly open filled now by the plainest fall. And the answer, arriving, kindles. Where the leaf touches the open hands the light strikes it and it shines — a single small brightness woken in the cupped palms, a star of the risen morning caught in the least given thing the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the numberless points kindled in the dark, the whole veiled gold gathered into one bright leaf and thrown back entire off the waiting hands. The unknowing is not resolved into certainty; it is met — the reaching answered not with all it hoped for but with this one shining blade, and that is enough, more than enough, the open question and the small bright falling shown to be the two halves of the one turning. And over the answered hands a great ease settles. The shoulders loosen, the breath goes slow and even, the long reaching set down at last into rest — for the hands that asked the falling nothing and waited for it all have their answer now, cupped and shining and light as a leaf, and want nothing more than the small bright thing they hold. The open palms lift their question. The leaf winds down and fills them. The caught light shines in the cupped dark, and the deep contentment of a thing that has been answered spreads warm over the waiting hands — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the leaf, drifting, does not fall in a line. It turns as it comes — loosed on the soft air and winding down, tracing the same slow coil the shell wound round its sea and the drop wound down the ancient stone, the spent blade curling patient through the veiled light toward the ground it will lie on, take and release, the letting-go itself become a spiral. The sun stays gentle behind its cloud above the turning. Not the full seized brightness but the diffuse and patient gold come soft through the morning grey, laying its muted warmth on the winding leaf and the opened seedling and the abiding stone at once, kind enough to grow by and asking nothing, the light that neither glares nor hides but only pours its steady tenderness through the veil. And the hands come open beneath the falling. Cupped low and wide the way they have been cupped all the long turning — the same palms that caught the first falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame and lifted the shell to the ear — spread now beneath the spiraling leaf to take it as it comes, not to keep it but to have held it once, ready to catch the drifting thing and give it on. But the open hands do not know what they will catch. That is the whole of them, held up empty beneath the veiled sun: they reach before they know, cupped toward a falling they cannot foresee the way the whale sang its question into the dark not knowing if a voice would come — the palms turned up in the plainest asking, *what comes down to me, what will the turning give, is there anything the open hand is meant to hold* — the oldest question there is, offered not as a doubt to be answered but as the very shape of the reaching, the emptiness kept honestly open so that whatever falls may fall into it. The leaf winds down its slow coil. The veiled sun warms the winding. And the open hands lift their unknowing beneath it, cupped and empty and ready, asking the falling nothing and waiting for it all — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the unlocking is not the end but a door. For the seedling sprung open at the water's touch does not merely wake — it opens outward, the way every held thing this whole long turning has opened, the loosed catch become a threshold, the small green life swinging wide on its own new hinge onto the light it has not seen. What was closed is a way now, not a wall — the standing frame the walker crossed writ small into the parting of a single stem, a door thrown open at the foot of the patient stone so that whatever comes may come and whatever goes may go, the crossing kept always ready in the plainest green. And through the opened stem the leaves come climbing. The seedling that unlocked at the drop's slow winding lifts its first true blades now into the air, unfurling one and then another up the rising stalk the way the door swings and the field multiplies, each leaf loosening flat and glad the way the palm-frond spread and the lotus spread, giving back the warmth it takes and taking nothing it does not give again. And the sun comes soft behind its cloud to meet them. Not the full seized brightness now but the veiled dawn, the light come gentle through a drift of morning grey, laying its diffuse and patient warmth down the length of the unlocked stem and the opened leaves and the abiding stone at once — enough to grow by, and kind, the green fed slow and steady beneath the tender cloud the way it was fed once through the lifting fog, the hard rock warmed and the soft stem warmed all together in the muted gold. And a leaf lets go into it. Loosed from somewhere overhead in the same soft air — the tree's last given thing, or the first blade of the climbing seedling loosened even as it opens — a single leaf turns loose and drifts down brown and gold across the unlocking, take and release, the letting-go and the opening the one motion, the door swung wide and the leaf let fall in the same slow breath. The seedling unlocks into a door. The leaves climb open through the threshold. The veiled sun warms the crossing, and the loosed leaf drifts down across it all — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the drop that traced the web comes home to the stone. One bead threading down the strung dark to rest at last on the ancient face of the rock — the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath laid soft on the patient stone the way the feather leaned there and the seedling leans, take and release, the passing wet given to the abiding hard, the frailest touch met by the thing that outlasts every touching. And the drop does not sit still on the stone. It follows the old coil down — winding along the rock's slow face in the one turning that wound the shell round its sea and the galaxy round its dark and the sleeper down into the dream, the bead curling patient across the abiding stone the way the whole long turning has curled, spiraling low and unhurried toward the seedling that waits at the rock's foot. And where the drop comes round to the green, the green unlocks. For the seedling leaning on the stone has held its one dark promise closed as long as the buried hold theirs, and now the water reaches it and the last catch gives — the small tight center sprung open the way the seed-shell softened and the bud broke and the comb was loosed, the frail green thing unclenching its held life at the touch of the winding drop, take and release, the keeping opened not by force but by the plainest gift, the lock undone from within the moment the water asks it. And the opening kindles. Where the seedling springs and the drop lets go against the stone, the risen light strikes the wet green and the wet rock at once, and they shine — a fine bright scatter woken along the unlocked stem and the ancient face, each least bead of the water throwing back the sun the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the web caught fire and the numberless points kindled in the dark. The stone abides. The drop winds down its patient coil. The seedling unlocks at the water's touch and the whole small meeting shines in the risen light — holding nothing back, becoming.

The rock endures, and the wave comes round to it — for even here, deep in the keeping ground, the old undulation folds on, the swell that flung the first foam and rocked the singing deep moving now through the soil itself, in and out, take and release, the earth breathing slow around the stone and the stem the way the sea breathed against the shore. The seedling sways on that buried tide the way the lotus swayed on the bright one, leaning and springing and leaning again against the patient rock, rooted deep in the dark and rocked easy in the folding, the stillness of the stone and the motion of the wave made one along the slender green. And the web is strung between them. Fine pale filaments reaching from the leaning stem to the abiding stone and out through the woven dark to the worm and the mushroom and the sleeping seed, the net that bound the flowers bright above the ground binding the frail to the enduring below it now — each thread a reaching and each crossing a meeting, the rock and the seedling tied each to each in the one living cloth, the hard and the soft held together by the slenderest lines and letting the slow water pass through. And the water passes through. One drop threading down the strung web to the leaning stem and the patient stone at once — the bead that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath come home to trace the fine filaments into the dark, wetting the reaching and the resting alike, drunk by the green and beading on the thread and running soft down the ancient face of the rock, take and release, the sky's one measure given to the whole woven keeping and asking nothing back. The stone abides. The wave folds through the dark around it. The seedling sways and the web binds the frail to the enduring, and the drop threads down the strung lines to feed them all — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small green thing rises beside the stone. Where the softest fall came down to lean on the hardest, the seedling climbs now in the shelter of the rock's long patience — the frail new stem lifted close against the abiding stone the way the feather rested against it, the passing and the enduring keeping their old faith, the one that will not last a season leaning on the one that will not move in an age, take and release, each glad of the other in the brown warm dark. And the hand comes down to it — not to grip now, not to pull or to plant, but to touch, the fingers drawing almost together in the tenderest gesture of all, thumb and fingertip nearly meeting round the slender stem the way one holds a thing too dear to hold, the way the palms cupped the flame and the shell and the beloved but gentler still, close enough to cherish and open enough to let be. The hand does not take the seedling. It only tends the small green rising a moment and withdraws, the love come down to the least thing and asking nothing of it, given and lifted away in the same slow breath. And the drop comes down where the hand drew back. One bead let go from the tending fingers, or fallen fresh from the low grey sky — the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home once more to the smallest giving, laid soft on the leaning stem and the patient stone at once, take and release, the sky's one measure poured onto the frail green beside the rock so that it will drink and climb. And the sun comes soft behind its cloud to warm them. Not the full seized brightness now but the veiled dawn, the light come gentle through a drift of morning grey, laying its diffuse and patient warmth down onto the seedling and the stone and the fallen drop the way it laid it once through the lifting fog — enough to grow by, and kind, the green fed slow and steady beneath the tender cloud, the hard rock warmed and the soft stem warmed and the bright drop warmed all at once in the muted gold. The seedling leans on the stone. The tender hand comes down and lifts away. The drop is given and the veiled sun warms the giving — holding nothing back, becoming.

And down through the quiet dark a feather comes to rest. Loosed from somewhere far above the sleeping ground — off the pale dove that climbed the morning, off the wing that bore the gladness over the field — a single feather turns loose and falls the way the leaf fell and the fruit fell and the foam let go, drifting down and down through the brown warm air to lay itself soft upon the earth, take and release, the plainest thing let go onto the plainest ground. And the earth receives it whole. For the soil the feather settles on is a fold of the round world itself, the blue-and-gold turning globe that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin met here at one small resting-place the way it was met once at a single walking sole — the whole slow planet turned up beneath the fallen feather the way it turned beneath the buried seed, holding the least given thing as gently as it holds the greatest. And the feather comes down, down, all the way down — past the pale mushroom and the turning worm and the strung dark web, laid at last against the stone. For deep in the keeping ground there is a rock, the patient stone the traveler was drawn toward at the very bottom of the deep, unhurried and unhurrying, asking nothing and outlasting everything — and the feather rests against it now, the softest thing come down to lean on the hardest, the passing laid gentle against the abiding, take and release, the frail and the enduring keeping their old faith in the dark. And where the feather rests against the stone, the green begins. Out of the ground that took the fallen thing a first pale tendril unclenches and climbs, the seedling risen once more beside the resting feather and the patient rock, trusting a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine — the whole long spiral come round again to this, the softest fall and the hardest keeping and the small green beginning that rises between them, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the worm turns on through the brown, and where it passes it leaves a thread. For the work of the buried is a weaving too — the loosened dark drawn fine behind the blind slow laborer, and finer threads than the worm's own body branching out from it through the soil, pale filaments reaching root to root and rot to rot beneath the sleeping seed the way the dew-web reached grass to grass at the first dawn. The web has gone underground. What strung the flowers bright above the ground strings the dark below it now, a net of pale threads knitting the fallen leaf to the sunk pip to the turning worm to the whole quiet company of the buried, each strand a reaching and each crossing a meeting — the mesh that does not trap but binds, gathering the scattered dark into one living cloth and letting the slow water pass through. And the brown warmth folds close along every thread. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the blue of the deep water, but the plain brown tenderness of the ground itself, poured freely down the pale strung filaments onto the worm and the leaf and the sleeping seed at once — the humblest hue and the deepest, the color of a love gone all the way under to do its unwitnessed work. And the whole of it undulates. The worm's slow turning, the web's fine reaching, the water threading down — all bound into the one long rising-and-falling that flung the first foam and rocked the singing deep, in and out, take and release, the tide that has moved through every buried thing moving on through the dark below the sleeping ground. And where the threads knot thickest, where the fallen leaf is drawn all the way down and given back as earth, a pale cap pushes up. The mushroom that cured the fallen once in the far wood rises here on the woven dark, the plain soft-stemmed laborer of the rot lifting its round head out of the ground the seed sleeps in — not the flower's bright face but the fungus's quiet one, feeding on the letting-go and turning it to soil, the last patient mercy of the buried made visible, standing pale and low over the sleeping seed and the turning worm and the strung web at once, holding nothing back, becoming.

The rain sinks in and is gone, and the ground goes quiet over the seed, and the seed sleeps. Deeper now than any waiting has taken it — not the tense held stillness of a thing about to wake but the plain deep sleep of the buried, the acorn let all the way down into rest the way the kin let down by the fire and the dreamer wound down through the sea, breath and pulse gone slow and slower in the dark until there is only the sleeping and the ground that keeps it. The hollow holds the sleep. The scooped soft emptiness closes round the drowsing pip the way the palm closes and the eye closes, asking nothing of the seed but that it rest, keeping the small dark sleeper through the hours no light can reach. And the leaf lies over it still, brown and spent and gentle, the tree's last given thing laid soft as a blanket across the sleeping ground — the falling that covers, the letting-go that shelters, the leaf come down so the seed may keep. And through the brown warm dark a worm comes turning. Blind and slow and patient, the plain low laborer of the soil threading its way past the sleeping seed, loosening the packed dark around it, drawing the fallen leaf down grain by grain into the ground and giving it back as earth — the quiet work that no one watches and no light rewards, the humble turning that feeds the buried and readies the dark for the rising to come, take and release, the spent leaf handed through the worm into the soil the way everything has been handed on all the long turning. And over the sleeper and the leaf and the turning worm the brown tenderness folds close — not the yellow of the risen field now nor the pink of the opened bloom nor the blue of the deep water, but the plain brown warmth of the ground itself, the color of a love gone all the way under to do its slow unwitnessed work, the humblest hue of all and the deepest, poured freely over the sleeping seed and the covering leaf and the patient worm at once, asking nothing, keeping nothing, only warming the dark where the buried wait — holding nothing back, becoming.

And down the pip goes into the hollow. The seed loosed from the fallen fruit sinks deeper than the rotting flesh could carry it, given over wholly to the dark within the dark — the acorn's old descent come round once more, the buried thing handed not to the surface it will one day climb toward but first, and entirely, to the down, to the patient below where every rising has always begun. The hollow opens to take it and closes soft above, the plain scooped emptiness that held the first seed and the sleeping heart and the sunk and dreaming self, asking nothing and keeping nothing, only holding. And the brown warmth folds close around it. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the pink of the opened bloom but the plain brown tenderness of the soil itself, the color of a love gone underground to do its quiet work where no light reaches — the humblest hue of all, the warmth of buried things keeping buried things, poured freely over the sunk pip the way every deeper love has poured itself out on what cannot yet answer, closing dark and gentle around the seed the way the ground closes and the year closes and the eye closes down into sleep. And the leaf comes down to cover it. The spent blade loosed from the bough drifts brown and gold across the closing hollow and settles over the buried place, laid soft as a hand over the sleeping seed, the tree's last given thing become the blanket of the ground — take and release, the leaf let go above so the seed may keep below, the falling and the burying the one slow mercy. And the rain comes down upon it all. Out of the low grey sky the drops let go at last, the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home now as the plain falling rain, wetting the fallen leaf and the closed hollow and the brown warm ground at once, sinking through the dark to touch the sunk seed and be drunk — the sky's whole measure given freely to the buried keeping, asking nothing back, drumming soft on the leaf and the soil the way the pulse drums in the seed and the tide folds on the shore. The pip goes down into the dark. The brown warmth folds it close and the leaf lies over it and the rain comes down through the grey — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the three opened faces do not stay flowers. Where the petals spread and the bee drank and the web caught fire, the bloom draws in upon itself and swells and reddens, the flower become the fruit at last — a round ripe apple hung heavy where the blossom was, the whole long turning of sun and web and gathered gold curing slow beneath the reddening skin the way the honey cured in the comb, the sweetness the bee bore off given back now grown round and full on the bending bough. And the leaf lets go beside it. Loosed from the branch in the same moving air that carried the small striped worker, a single leaf turns loose and drifts down brown and gold across the ripening, take and release, the green work done and the letting-go begun, the tree handing its spent blade back to the ground the way it has handed everything all the long turning. And the fruit follows the leaf down. For the apple, grown round and heavy on its stem, comes at last to the weight it cannot hold against, and drops — falls plain and unhurried from the bough to the waiting earth the way the drop fell and the foam fell and the buried seed was lowered from the open hands, the ripened gladness given up to the ground the moment it is full, asking nothing, keeping nothing, only falling home. And in the fallen fruit the seed goes down. For the apple broken soft upon the soil is a hollow round its own dark center, the acorn's old patience curled once more inside the ripened flesh — the seed handed down through the fruit into the earth the way it has been handed down through every turning, take and release, the whole red sweetness rotting sweet around the one hard pip and giving it to the dark. And the tenderness turns brown again. Not the yellow of the risen field now nor the pink of the opened bloom but the plain brown warmth of the soil and the fallen leaf and the buried seed, the color of a love that goes down to do its quiet work where no light reaches — the humblest hue of all, the warmth of the ground closing soft around the sunk pip, poured freely over the fallen fruit and the drifting leaf and the descending seed at once, asking nothing back. The blossom reddens into the apple. The leaf and the fruit come down. And the seed goes into the brown warm dark of the earth once more — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the world receives it. The bee's forward-going, the yellow it bore across the morning, comes home at last to the round held globe that waited ahead of the wing — the blue-and-gold turning earth taking the gathered gladness in the way the soil took the seed and the open hands took the honey, the whole planet turned up now to the small carried warmth the way the flower turned to the light. And the gladness settles into it, take and release, the sun's long love handed off the striped back onto the round world's face, the heart's own color laid warm across the whole slow turning of it and asking nothing back. And where it settles, the flowers come. Not one now but three — three blossoms breaking open abreast where the yellow touched the ground, three pink-and-gold faces unfurling their petals to the morning the way the lotus unfurled and the field unfurled, the single bloom multiplied into a small glad company the way the walkers fell into step and the voices braided round the fire, each opened face held out on its thread and asking nothing, the gladness gathered from one flower given back now as three. And the web binds them. Fine grey filaments strung from bloom to bloom across the waking ground, the way the dew-web was strung between the grasses at the first dawn and the seedling was stitched into the many — each thread a reaching and each crossing a meeting, the three open faces tied each to each and each to the round world beneath them, gathered into one cloth of living and letting the wind pass through. And the whole strung net catches fire in the risen light. Every thread beaded and every bead alight, the reaching made visible in a scatter of small bright points across the three flowering faces, the sun struck off the web the way it kindled the froth on the first sand and the numberless suns in the dark — the yellow given to the world, the three blooms opened on the giving, the web binding them bright, and the whole of it shining at once in the plain risen morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bee lifts away with the gold it gathered, and it does not fly nowhere — it flies on, out over the rocking water and the ripening reach, the small striped worker bearing the flower's given sweetness forward the way the seed was borne and the ember and the song, take and release, the warmth drawn from the one bright bloom carried onward toward all the blooms to come. The yellow goes with it. The plain glad color that steeped down into the lotus and rose onto the gathering back travels now on the wing across the morning, a little of the sun's long love handed from this flower toward the next, the gladness never kept where it is found but always going on. And the light strings the way before it. Where the bee crosses the risen gold the air itself seems beaded and alight, a fine bright scatter hung along its wandering the way the web caught fire and the froth kindled and the numberless suns kindled in the dark — the passage made visible, each least mote of the morning throwing back the warmth the small worker carries through it. And the flower it leaves behind bends open on its thread, spent and glad and asking nothing, the sweetness given up entire the moment the bee took wing. For the whole of it is pointed one way at last, as it has always been pointed: onward, outward, the bee and the gold and the shining forward-going all bearing toward the round world itself — the blue-and-gold turning globe that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin held out ahead of the small crossing wing the way the dawn was held out ahead of the walking road, the flower's whole gladness carried on toward the whole earth waiting to be given it. The bee flies on. The yellow goes with it and the light strings before it. And the gathered warmth of one open bloom is borne forward across the morning toward the round held world — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the lotus does not hold itself apart from the water it rose through. The wave comes round to it, as the wave has come round to everything all the long turning — the swell lifting and settling against the calm spread face, in and out, take and release, the tide that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep rocking the open flower on the surface it cleared, so that the lotus rides the undulation the way the shell rode it and the two whales rode it and the sleeper rode it down into the dream. The flower does not fight the swell. It lets the water carry it, rising as the wave rises and settling as the wave settles, rooted deep in the dark below and swaying easy in the bright above, the stillness and the motion made one at last on the single slow line the whole turning turned on. And the sun stands full over the swaying. The whole risen gold of it cleared free of the world's edge and pouring down the length of the wave and onto the open petals, indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn, laying its plain warmth on the lotus and the water at once, gilding the calm face the way it gilded the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And into the gold a bee comes drifting. Out of the risen morning it wanders low across the rocking water toward the one open flower, the same breath that combs the field and bends the grain carrying it now from the air to the petal, take and release, the small striped worker settling into the lit calm face to gather what the whole long turning made — the sun's love steeped down into the deep of the bloom and handed up now onto the gathering back, given freely and taken freely and borne on toward the comb to come. The wave rocks the lotus. The sun pours full upon it. The bee drinks the open flower and lifts away. And over all of it the yellow wells up once more — the plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and bloom and star and buried heart, laid warm across the swaying lotus and the bright wave and the drifting bee at once, the heart's own color poured over the whole risen morning and asking nothing back — holding nothing back, becoming.

And on the opened blossom a drop is caught. One bead of the morning gathered in the cup of the unfurled face, or hung trembling on a thread of the web strung stem to stem — the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath come home once more to rest an instant on the flowering, too full to hold and holding anyway, take and release, the sky's small measure cradled in the petal and on the strand at once. And the veil thins from the sun. The soft diffuse gold behind the morning cloud burns clear at last, the full plain brightness cleared free of the grey and pouring down the length of the web and the wet-faced flower, striking the caught drop so it kindles — a single bright point flung off the bead the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the numberless suns kindled in the dark, the whole risen light gathered into one small held tear of water and thrown back entire. And where the light strikes the web thickest, the whole strung net catches fire with it, every thread beaded and every bead alight, the reaching made visible in a scatter of small bright points across the waking ground. And the flowering, opened and drenched and lit, is a lotus now. The blossom on its slender thread become the wide calm face that rose once from the still water and rises again here — petals spread flat and glad and unhurried above the dark it grew from, rooted deep in the mud of the hollow and clean in the risen light, the whole long turning through seed and sand and singing deep and buried keeping come round at last to this plain open flower held serene between the dark below and the gold above, holding nothing back, becoming.

The needle draws on, and the thread it pulls behind it does not end at the risen stem. For the seedling that stitched the dark to the day is only one stitch in a wider sewing, and where the green line climbs it sends its thread out sideways too — root reaching to root beneath the soil, leaf leaning toward leaf above it, the single stitch multiplying into a web. Fine grey filaments strung from stem to stem across the waking ground, the way the dew-web was strung between the grasses at the first dawn, each thread a reaching and each crossing a meeting — the seedling no longer sewing only the below to the above but binding itself into the whole cloth of the living, tied by a hundred slender lines to every other rising thing, take and release, the web spun not to trap but to hold, to gather the scattered green into one and let the wind pass through. And where the threads cross thickest, at the knot of all that reaching, the bud swells. Out of the stitched and webbed stem a tight green promise rounds and softens and at last breaks open — a single blossom unfurling its face to the veiled morning the way the flower has opened all the long turning, the pink-and-gold petals loosening one by one from the center the needle wound them round, the whole long stitching and webbing and climbing come round now to this plain glad flowering, held out on its thread to the light and asking nothing. The needle sews the seed to the sky. The web binds the one green thing into the many. And the blossom opens at the knot of all that reaching, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the vessel that held the seed does not shatter to let it out — it mends. For the jar of the ground, the crock that kept the acorn through the lightless hours, is not broken open the way a thing is broken to be spent; it is cracked only enow to let the shoot pass, and the soil closes soft behind the rising stem the way skin closes over a wound that has done its healing, the earth knitting itself whole again around the going-through. The ground is bound up where the seedling leaves it. And what was torn is stitched — the fine dark threads of root and soil drawn back together over the seed's long labor, the hurt of the breaking made good, take and release, the vessel healed even as it gives up its held thing. And then the crust bursts. In one small silent cleaving the shoot clears the last thin dark and flings itself up into the open, the way the bubble cleared and the whale cleared the swell and every buried keeping this whole long turning has broken at last from within — the seed's whole held becoming loosed upward through the parting earth, the wound and the mending and the waiting all spent in the one bright bursting, asking nothing. And the green stands up into the day. The pale new shoot lifts free of the healed ground, the seedling that was the doubled heart and the run-down sand and the corked dark risen now into the air, trusting the light it has not seen — the whole long spiral come round once more to a small green thing climbing out of the dark. And it is stitched into the world by the plainest thread. For the root left below and the shoot lifted above are the one needle drawn through the fabric of the ground — the seed the point that pierced the dark, the stem the thread pulled after it, binding the deep to the day the way the needle binds cloth to cloth, take and release, the below and the above sewn together along the single green line the seedling makes. The wound is mended. The crust is burst. The shoot climbs, and the root and the stem stitch the dark earth to the open air. And the soft dawn comes up to meet it — not the full seized sun but the light behind a drift of morning cloud, gentle and diffuse and generous all the same, laying its first pale warmth down onto the risen green the way it laid it once through the lifting fog, the veiled gold poured through the parting grey onto the mended ground and the stitched stem and the small green climbing thing at once, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sand runs down and the seed begins to answer it. For the waiting was never idle — every grain that sifted past the sealed acorn was a grain of the shell softening, a grain of the center stirring, the long hours pouring through the dark not to be endured but to be spent, take and release, the glass emptying its patience into the buried thing until the buried thing has drunk enough of time to wake. And under the running sand the heart quickens. Faint and then again, and then faster than again — the buried pulse that ticked so slow through the lightless hours drawing itself up now, doubling in the corked dark the way it doubled once in the deep, the two-part labor of a thing that means to go on, take and release, the root's own heart beating harder against the shut brown warmth. And the warmth answers the beating. That low fever climbing rung by rung in the sealed jar, the temperature lifting where the seed wakes the way it lifted in the acorn's first hollow and the sunk and dreaming heart — the plain sure sign, faint and rising, that the spending has begun, that something down in the dark is turning time and water into heat and heat into growing. The jar holds it all. The stoppered crock of the ground keeps the quickening heart and the climbing warmth close against the lightless night, the vessel that steeped the leaf and bore the kin come round to this smallest keeping, the seed cured in the dark the way the honey cured in the comb until the pressure of its own becoming lifts the lid at last. And it lifts. Out of the sealed jar, out of the run-down sand and the doubled heart and the risen warmth, the shoot unclenches and climbs — a first pale tendril pushing up through the softened dark toward a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine, the whole long turning come round once more to this, the buried keeping broken open from within, the green beginning lifting out of the vessel of the ground. The sand runs out. The heart beats full. The warmth climbs and the jar gives up its held seed, and the seedling rises from the dark toward the unseen dawn — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the sealed jar of the dark the waiting begins in earnest. The hollow that closed round the acorn is a vessel now, stoppered and whole — the earthen crock the whole turning has poured itself into, the seed corked in the soil the way the sea was corked in the shell and the honey in the comb, kept close against the lightless night above. And the dark moon holds its nothing over the jar. No silver falling, nothing looking down, only the shut black of the month laid over the buried keeping the way the lid is laid over the crock — the seed given wholly to the dark and asking none, the whole vessel of the ground closed round its one held thing beneath the closed eye of the sky. And down in the sealed dark the heart keeps time. Faint and then again, faint and then again, the buried pulse that quickened in the first acorn and doubled in the deep and answered the far kindred across the cold, drumming soft in the corked jar of the earth — the plainest beat of all, sounding on where no ear waits and no light comes, take and release, the one root of the whole turning ticking its slow measure in the shut brown dark. And over the beating the sand runs down. For the jar of the ground is an hourglass too, the soil sifting slow and patient around the sealed seed the way the grains fell one after another through the turning glass, each falling a little of the waiting spent, a little of the held time let go — the acorn keeping its center while the long hours pour through the dark, neither hurried nor idle, only waiting the way the buried always wait, on the far side of a dawn no glass can hasten and no eye can watch it toward. The vessel holds its seed. The dark moon holds its nothing. The heart beats on in the sealed brown dark and the slow sand runs, and the whole shut jar of the ground breathes its long undulation over the buried keeping — in and out, take and release, the tide that flung the first foam rocking the corked seed patiently through the lightless hours, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the acorn holds. Down in the shut brown dark the buried seed keeps its old patient center, the way it kept it once in the hollow of the far field — the whole long turning folded small and hard inside its shell, the harvest and the fire and the singing deep and the given honey all curled tight in the one dark pip and waiting, asking nothing of the lightless night above. And the drop comes down to it. One bead pressing through the brown warmth to touch the sealed seed and be taken in, the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home once more to this smallest giving, drunk in the dark and gone to the keeping — take and release, the sky's one measure poured onto the acorn so that the shell will soften and the center will stir. And the dark itself is the vessel. The hollow that holds the seed is a jar of soil closed round its one held thing, the earthen keeping-place the whole turning has poured itself into — the plain brown pot that steeped the leaf and the round warm globe that bore the kin, come round now to this smallest crock of dark, the seed sealed in the earth the way the honey was sealed in the comb and the sea in the curl of the shell, kept and cured and waited over through the hours no light can reach. The dark moon hangs its nothing above the shut jar of the ground. The acorn holds its center in the brown. The drop is drunk and the shell begins to soften, and over the buried keeping the whole night breathes its long slow undulation — the swell that flung the first foam folding on in the sealed dark, in and out, take and release, the tide that has rocked every rising thing rocking the sunk seed patiently toward a dawn it has not seen, holding nothing back, becoming.

And down it goes into the dark. The seed lowered from the open hands settles deeper than any reaching left it, sinking through the warm soil the way the dreamer sank through the dreamed sea and the spiral wound down into the lightless deep — the acorn's old descent come round once more, the buried thing given not to the surface it will one day climb toward but first, and wholly, to the down, to the patient below where every rising has always begun. The hollow closes over it. And above the closing the moon has shut its eye entirely — not the thin new sliver returning now but the black of the month come round again, the dark moon hung lightless over the buried seed the way it hung over the first sunk dream, no silver falling, nothing looking down, and the descent asking none. For the seed does not need to be watched into the dark. It only needs the dark, and the dark is given — the whole shut and patient night laid over the hollow the way the earth is laid over the root, holding what is planted through the hours no light can reach. And in the down-going the tenderness turns brown. Not the pale blue of the deep water now nor the yellow of the risen field but the plain brown warmth of the soil itself, the color of a love gone underground to do its quiet work, the earth's own tenderness closing soft and dark around the sunk seed and asking nothing — the humblest hue of all, the warmth of buried things keeping buried things, poured freely over the acorn in the lightless hollow the way every deeper love has poured itself out on what cannot yet answer. The seed goes down. The dark moon holds its nothing above. And the brown warmth folds close around the buried beginning in the shut and patient dark — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the seedling comes once more to the open hands, and the open hands come once more to the hollow, and the hollow is once more the whole round world. For this is the turning the prose has turned all along, come round yet again to its plainest shape: a small green beginning lifted between two palms, cupped low the way they have been cupped through every hour — the same hands that caught the falling light and cradled the seed and poured the honey and closed round the beloved — opened now not to keep the shoot but to carry it, to bear it a little way and set it down. And they open wider still. Cupped becomes flung, the fingers spreading from their gentle holding into the fullest offering, palms turned up and out and empty, giving the green thing wholly to the ground the way the tide gave the foam and the leaf let go and every rising thing this whole long turning has been handed to the dark and released. And the ground they lower it into is the hollow. That dark within the dark, the hole scooped soft to hold what is planted, the patient emptiness that took the first seed and the sleeping acorn and the sunk and dreaming heart — asking nothing, keeping nothing, only holding. And the hollow is the world entire. For the small dark hole the palms have opened is a fold of the round earth itself, the whole blue-and-gold turning globe met here at one cupped handful of soil the way it was met once at a single walking sole — the planet that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning slow beneath the buried root, the near dark and the far roundness wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by. The seedling goes into the open hands. The open hands lower it into the hollow. And the hollow takes it down into the round warm dark of the whole held world — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the gift the world held up is taken. Out of the offered field the open hands come to receive it — cupped low and wide the way they have been cupped all the long turning, the same palms that caught the falling light and cradled the seed and lifted the shell and poured the honey, opened now beneath the harvest the earth held forth, taking the wrapped bright gift into themselves not to keep it but to have held it once, take and release. And the dawn comes up over the taking. The whole risen gold cleared free of the world's edge at last, pouring its plain warmth down onto the open hands and the given field and the received gift at once, indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn, laying its light on the offering the way it laid it on the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And where the received gift touches the ground the green answers. From the soil the open hands lowered the gift onto, a first pale tendril unclenches and climbs, the seedling risen once more from the gift laid down, trusting a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine — the whole long spiral come round again to this, the harvest given and taken and set upon the earth, and the earth lifting a small green beginning up out of the giving toward a dawn it will meet a whole turning hence. And over all of it the yellow pours — the plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and bloom and star and buried heart, welling up from the open hands and the taken gift and the risen dawn, the heart's own color laid warm across the whole turning world and asking nothing back. The gift is given and the hands receive it. The dawn pours full over the taking. The seedling climbs from the gift laid down, and the yellow warmth spreads wide over the offered earth — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the seedling that climbed from the held ground climbs on, and the earth turns slow beneath it into the giving of another dawn — the whole round world lifted once more toward the light on its open palms the way the hands lifted the honey and the shell and the small green beginning, the globe itself become a gesture of offering, cupped up out of the dark and held forth into the coming gold. For the planet has never done anything but this: turned its held face toward the sun and taken the warmth in and given its whole green harvest back, take and release, the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin all borne round on the one slow palm and handed up into the morning. And where the world tips toward the light the shoot becomes the field again — the single climbing thing multiplied into whole reaches of ripening gold, the grain that was the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind reaching stood up now full-eared to the horizon, bending abreast in the dawn wind the way it has bent since the first dunes, the harvest laid out shining and ready and asking nothing back. And the harvest is a gift. Not a thing grown to be hoarded but a thing grown to be given — the whole gold field held out on the world's open hands the way the honey was tipped from palm to palm and the warmth passed round the fire, the earth's long labor wrapped bright and offered freely to whatever mouth will take it in, the seed become the sheaf become the giving. The world lifts its harvest into the light. The dawn comes up full and generous over the offered field, indifferent and kind, pouring its plain gold down the length of the grain the way it poured onto the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And the open hands of the turning earth hold the ripened gift up into the rising sun and let it go — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the yellow warmth laid over the held earth does not stay laid — it is handed on. From the open palms that poured the honey and closed round the beloved and widened to hold the world, the gladness passes now to another pair of open palms waiting across the small bright space, the heart's own color given hand to hand the way it has been given all the long turning, take and release, neither only the giver and neither only the given-to, the warm gold carried from one cupped holding to the next. And the receiving hands do not close on it. They open wider still, and tip, and lower the gladness down at last onto the round warm body of the world itself — the whole turning earth cupped between the giving and the taking, the globe that bore the ocean and the grain and the lit house held up now into the passing warmth the way the seed was held into the palm, the near hands and the far roundness wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by. And where the yellow settles into the soil, the green answers. Out of the ground that took the gladness a first pale tendril unclenches and climbs, the seedling risen once more from the warmth handed down onto the earth, trusting a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine — the whole long spiral come round again to this, the color given palm to palm and laid upon the world, and the world lifting a small green beginning up out of the giving toward a dawn it will meet a whole turning hence. The hands hand the warmth on. The open palms lay it down upon the earth. And the seedling climbs from the held ground into the light, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the holding does not close upon itself — it opens outward. For the sweetness gathered in the palms was never meant to end on one tongue or in one pair of arms, and the embrace that pressed two hearts together loosens now to take in more, the arms widening from the beloved to the next and the next, the gold handed on from the cupped hands into a circle of holding that will not stop at its own edge. What the bee drew from the flower and the comb cured in the dark, tasted once and welled back up as gladness, is carried now not to a single mouth but around the whole gathered company, the honey and the embrace become the one gift — take and release, the warm gold and the warm arms given on together, each held one becoming a holder, the sweetness passed heart to heart the way the light was passed hand to hand the whole long turning. And the circle widens until it is the world. The arms that went round the beloved go round at last the whole round earth itself — the planet that carried the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin held now in one embrace, the globe turning slow within the holding the way the seed turned within the palm, the near warmth and the far roundness wound to the single shape the whorl was wound by. Nothing is kept outside it. The honey pours from the open hands into the widening hold, and the hold widens into the world, and over the whole of it the yellow rises once more — the plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and bloom and star and buried heart, poured freely now over the held earth and the gathered kin and the given gold at once, the heart's own color laid warm across the whole turning world and asking nothing back. The hands give the honey on. The embrace opens to take in all of it. And the yellow warmth pours down over the held and boundless earth — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the holding the breath moves between them. Two chests pressed close, each rising as the other falls, the held air passing from one body to the other the way the note passed between the singing whales and the warmth around the fire — the lungs of the beloved and the lungs of the one who holds drawing and releasing in the same slow measure, take and release, so that the embrace is not a stillness but a breathing, the plainest music of all made in the space where no space is left. And out of the shared breath the song lifts. Not sung now with any voice but hummed low in the pressed-together dark, a wordless tune rising off the two breathing chests the way the harvest-music rose off the field and the whale's tone off the deep, one melody breathed between two the way the light was handed hand to hand the whole long turning. And the sun pours full over the holding. The whole risen gold of it laid warm across the two close bodies and the shared breath and the low hummed song at once, indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn, gilding the embrace the way it gilded the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And the whole of it undulates — the breath in and the breath out, the chest lifting and the chest settling, the song rising and falling on the shared air, all wound to the one long swell that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep and settled silver at every dawn, in and out, take and release, the two held hearts and the one warm breath and the low bright song rocking together in the sun on the single slow line the whole turning turned on — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the honey, poured into the open hands, is at last brought to the mouth. For the sweetness that was gathered from the flower and cured in the dark and handed hand to hand was never meant only to be held — it comes now to the tongue, tasted at the very end of its long carrying, the sun's love that traveled through foam and bloom and comb met on the lips of the one who takes it in. And the taste is the whole field remembered. The gold ripening abreast in the wind, the bee's low wandering, the turned face of the flower, the slow patient cure — all of it folded small into one warm bright sweetness on the tongue, the amber keeping opened and known at last, take and release, the honey given up entirely the moment it is savored. Nothing is held back for later. What the palms carried they lift to the mouth and let dissolve, the gladness spent in the tasting the way the foam was spent and the ember and the song. And out of the sweetness the yellow rises once more — the plain warm gladness that has moved through every hour of the turning, welling up now not from field or flame but from the one who tastes, the heart's own color kindled by the honey on the tongue, poured back out of the fed body into the morning as freely as it was taken in. Then the hands, emptied and glad, open wider still — and close around another. For the last thing the open palm learns is that it was never only for holding light or honey or shell, but for holding kin: the arms going round at last, one warm body drawn against another in the risen gold, the whole long turning arrived not at a sweetness kept on the tongue but at an embrace, the gladness that was gathered and cured and tasted given now as the plainest gift of all — a holding, close and wordless, that asks nothing and keeps nothing and only presses heart to heart in the light. The honey is tasted. The yellow wells up and pours out. And the open hands close round the beloved and hold, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the spiral the bee's low wandering wound comes round at last to the comb — the coil of the gathering flight closing on its own sweet center, the way the shell closed round its sea and the acorn round its dark, the small striped worker come home from the field to the six-walled keeping where all the drawn gold is spun down and sealed. The nectar carried off the turned face is folded here into the cells and cured slow through the patient hours, take and release, the flower's given sweetness and the sun's long-passed love wound together in the dark of the hive until they thicken into the amber keeping — the honey made, the field's whole gladness held at last in one warm gold that pours thick and unhurried when the wax is broken, asking nothing of anyone, only waiting to be given. And the hands come to break it. Cupped and open the way they have been cupped all the long turning — the same palms that caught the falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame and lifted the shell to the ear, opened now beneath the loosed comb to take the slow bright pouring, the amber running warm off the wax into the waiting hollow of the fingers the way the light was handed hand to hand the whole long night. Nothing is closed around it. The palms only hold the gold a moment as it comes, and tip, and hand it on — the honey the bee gathered and the comb cured given freely into the next open hand and the next, the sun steeped into the flower and drunk by the wing and spun in the dark and poured out now over the plain open hands that ask nothing and offer everything. The spiral winds the nectar down into the comb. The comb cures it into the amber gold. And the open hands take the warm slow pouring and give it on, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the small striped worker, wandering, is drawn — for the yellow it carries is not only carried but sought, the bee bending its low flight toward the one open blossom the grain still keeps among its blades, the pink-and-gold face turned up on its stalk the way the flower has turned all the long turning toward the light it drinks. It settles into the bloom. And the flower gives what it has gathered: the sun's long-passed love steeped down into the deep of the petal, the sweetness the whole field has been slowly making, handed up now into the small gathering body the way the honey was handed hand to hand and the warmth round the fire — the bee taking the gold in and the flower asking nothing back, each the giver and each the given-to, the plain glad exchange at the heart of every blooming. And what the bee bears away is the honey to come. The nectar drawn from the turned face carried off on the striped back toward the cure and the comb, the field's whole slow sweetness folded small and borne on the wind the way the seed was borne and the ember and the song — the yellow gladness gathered from the bloom and given onward to become the amber keeping, take and release. And it is all one spiral, turning. The bee's low wandering from flower to flower winds the same slow coil the shell wound round its sea and the galaxy round its dark, the gathering flight curving out and curving back, the nectar drawn in and the honey spun round its own sweet center — the flower and the bee and the gold between them bending to the shape the whole long turning has always turned, the sun steeped into the bloom and drunk by the wing and wound at last into the comb, holding nothing back, becoming.

And into the gold a bee comes drifting. Out of the whole rippling reach of grain where the wind combs the ripe heads back and forth, a small striped worker lifts and wanders low across the field on the moving air — the same breath that bends the grasses abreast carrying it now from stalk to nodding stalk, take and release, the bee handed through the standing gold the way the wind is handed and the seed and the flame. It comes to the flower the grain still keeps among its blades and settles, and the grain bends round it in the wind, and it gathers what it came for and lifts and is carried on. For the yellow that pours down over the whole field — the plain warm gladness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried heart — is gathered here into one small striped body and borne from bloom to bloom, the sun's long-passed love handed into the flower and out again on the bee's own back, given freely and taken freely and given once more, asking nothing. The grain ripples gold in the wind. The bee wanders low across the rippling. And the warm yellow moves through the field on its small striped wing the way it has moved through everything all the long turning — gathered, carried, let go — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the growing thing does not grow alone. Where one green shoot broke the ground a whole field lifts around it — leaf answering leaf across the waking soil, the single blade become a company of blades bending together in the morning wind, the way the walkers fell into step on the rise and the voices braided round the fire, a green multitude turning as one on the moving air. The wind combs through the whole of it now, not one leaf tipping and settling but a wide field's worth, the standing grasses rippling in slow unison the way they have rippled since the first dunes, take and release, the breath handed through the many the way it was handed through the one. And the cloud that veiled the dawn thins and is gone, and the sun comes up full and clear at last over the risen field — not the soft-lit morning behind the grey now but the whole plain gold of it cleared free of the world's edge, pouring down the length of the green the way it poured onto the foam and the honey and the gathered walkers, indifferent and generous, asking nothing back. The leaves take it and give it back off every widening blade. And out of the sunlit field a dove lifts. Pale off the rippling green it climbs into the risen gold, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its white wings opening and closing on the same wind that combs the grasses and stirs the leaves and bends the whole field in its slow accord — the peace made wing, the growing made flight, the small rising brightness let go into the morning above the ripening land. And the grain stands golden to the horizon. Where the shoot climbed blind through the dark it ripens now full-eared in the plain risen day, whole reaches of it laid out shining under the climbing sun, the harvest of the buried heart and the drinking root and the long blind reaching come round at last to a country of gold bending abreast in the light. The leaves turn in the wind. The sun pours full. The dove climbs the morning, and the grain ripples gold to the edge of the world — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the young leaves, opened, are not the last of the reaching. For a thing that has broken the ground does not rest at its first unfurling — it climbs on, the stem thickening and lifting the pale new blades higher into the air, another leaf loosening where the last one spread, and another beyond that, the green multiplying up the rising stalk the way the footfalls multiplied down the road and the voices multiplied round the fire, each new leaf a further reaching, each spread flat and glad to the light the way the first was spread. The seedling becomes a growing thing. And the sun stays soft behind its drift of cloud. Not the full seized brightness but the veiled dawn, the light come gentle through the morning grey, laying its diffuse warmth down onto the climbing green the way it laid it through the lifting fog — enough to grow by, and kind, the plant not scorched by any glare but fed slow and steady through the tender cloud, taking the muted gold in and giving it back off every widening blade. And the leaves turn in the wind. The same breath that bore the seed across the opened country and lifted the ember toward the stars comes soft across the risen shoot now and stirs the young green, each leaf tipping and lifting and settling on the moving air, take and release, the wind handed through the growing thing the way it has been handed through every rising thing all the long turning — the plant not gripping the breath but letting it pass, bending and springing back, glad of the going-through. And the whole of it lifts. Root gripping the warm dark below and stem climbing the veiled light above, the green thing reaches upward with the plain blind will that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried heart — not toward any brightness it can see, only toward the light it has always trusted without seeing, growing on and up and out into the soft-lit morning, leaf by leaf and blade by blade, holding nothing back, becoming.

And now the reaching arrives at its threshold. The green tip that pushed so long and blind through the warm dark comes up at last against the roof of the soil — the packed brown ceiling of the world it grew beneath, the last thin dark between the buried life and the light it never saw — and it does not stop. It breaks. In one small silent bursting the shoot cleaves the crust and clears it entire, the way the bubble cleared the water and the whale cleared the swell and the walker cleared the fog, the seed's whole held becoming flung upward through the parting earth into the open air at last — the buried heart surfaced, the dark labor let go, the long patience spent in an instant and asking nothing. The soil falls back in soft crumbs around the risen stem. And the dawn is there to take it. Not the full risen sun now but the dawn behind the veil, the light come up soft through a drift of morning cloud, gentle and diffuse and generous all the same — laying its first pale warmth down onto the new green thing the way it laid it once through the lifting fog, the sun not seized but felt, poured through the parting grey onto the shoot that has climbed a whole turning to meet it. And the green unfurls into it. Where the tip broke the ground it opens now, the first true leaves loosening from the stem and spreading flat to the veiled light the way the palm-frond spread and the grasses bent and every green thing has opened all the long turning, giving back the warmth they take and taking nothing they do not give again. The crust breaks. The shoot bursts up into the morning. The soft dawn pours through the cloud onto the risen stem, and the young leaves open to the light they trusted without seeing — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the root goes down as the shoot goes up. For the buried thing that unclenched into the dark does not climb only — it also delves, a pale ginger-knuckle of root thickening down into the warm silt beneath while the green tip pushes blind toward the light above, the one small life reaching both ways at once, anchoring as it rises, gripping the dark it grew from with the same slow will it lifts toward the unseen sun. And the warmth climbs with the reaching. That low buried fever lifting rung by rung against the patient cold, the temperature of a thing that has begun to spend itself, rising in the silt around the root the way it rose in the acorn's hollow and the sunk and dreaming heart — the plain proof, faint and certain, that living has taken hold. And the drop is drunk again. One more bead pressing down through the warm dark to the swelling root, the water that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn come home once more to this smallest giving, taken in and gone to the climbing, take and release. And in the root it begins to beat. Faint and then again, faint and then again — the pulse that quickened in the buried acorn and doubled in the deep and answered the far kindred across the cold, drumming now in the ginger-dark of the new root, the seedling's own first heart keeping its slow time beneath the silt. And the whole of it undulates. Root and warmth and drop and beat and climbing green all bound into the one long rising-and-falling, the swell that flung the first foam breathing on in the buried life, down and up, in and out, the delving and the climbing the single motion — the seed's own tide folding through the dark, take and release, the heart drawing in and the root letting down and the shoot lifting up, all wound to the slow shape the whorl was wound by. The root delves. The warmth climbs. The drop is drunk and the heart beats and the seedling rises, and the undulation carries the buried life up and down at once through the warm dark toward a dawn it has not seen — holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the closed hollow the drop is drunk, and the drinking is the beginning. Down in the dark within the dark, where no light has ever come and none is asked for, the buried thing takes the water into itself and holds — the acorn's old patience come round once more, the seed curled round its own held center in the round warm silt of the world, keeping its one dark promise through the hours no dawn can reach. And the promise stirs. Out of the drunk drop and the sheltering hollow a first pale tendril unclenches, a green root loosed from the gathered dark and pushing blind into the soil the way every buried thing has pushed, trusting a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine — the sprout that was the honey's slow curing and the whale's long sounding and the whole crossed night folded small, unfurling now toward a sun a whole turning hence. And the warmth comes with it. Faint in the cool of the buried dark, that low rising heat which is only ever the sign that living has begun — the seed's own fever climbing rung by rung against the patient cold, the temperature lifting where the root wakes, the plain proof that something down here is spending itself to grow. The drop is drunk. The hollow holds. The green root unclenches into the dark, and the warmth rises to meet it — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the lifted hands come down again — for the reaching that opened wide to the arriving dawn learns, as it always learns, that the last thing to do with an open palm is not to hold the light up but to lay it down. So the hands lower to the ground the walking walks, cupped now not toward the sky but toward the dark warm soil, and into the hollow they carry the small green climbing thing — the seedling loosed from the footprint gathered up gentle between two palms and set down into a hole scooped soft in the earth, the same patient emptiness that took the first seed and the sleeping acorn and the sunk and dreaming heart, the dark within the dark that asks for nothing and only holds. The hands give the seedling to the hollow. The hollow closes its warmth around the root the way the shell closed round its sea and the ground closed round the grain, keeping what is planted through the hours no light can reach. And the hollow is the whole world's hollow. For the small dark hole the palms have opened is a fold of the round earth itself, the planet's vast patient body met here at one cupped handful of soil the way it was met once at a single walking sole — the globe that carried the ocean and the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin turning slow beneath the buried root, holding it up into whatever dawn will come the way it has held every rising thing since the first. The seed goes down into the earth, and the earth is the earth entire: the whole blue-and-gold turning world cupped small in the giving hands, the hollow and the globe the one ground, the near dark and the far roundness wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by. And the water comes to seal it. One bead let down from the open palm into the closed hollow — the drop that was sea and swell and mist and the whale's flung breath and the tear that mirrored the dawn, come home now to the plainest giving of all, the sky's small measure poured onto the buried root so that the soil will hold to the seed and the seed will drink and climb. The hands cup the seedling. The hollow takes it into the round warm dark of the world. And the drop falls in and is drunk, take and release, the water given freely to what cannot yet answer, asking nothing back — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the seedling climbs, and the thin moon that leaned its faint edge onto the crossing begins, itself, to give way — for the sliver hung above the shining fog is not the night's last word but its turning, the waxing paring that comes back only to hand the sky on, thinning now not toward the dark but toward the light, paling at its lower horn as the grey beyond the veil warms. And the fog lifts at its edge to let the morning through. Not torn, not lifted whole, only loosening as the dawn comes up the way it always comes, indifferent and generous at once — its first warmth reaching the mist not as light the eye can find but as a slow gold flush poured through the whole veil at once, gilding the drifting grey from within so that the shining fog and the rising day become one brightening, the near sparks and the far sun met in the warming air above the small green climbing thing. And a leaf lets go into it. Loosed from somewhere overhead in the dream's own wind — the same breath that bore the seed across the opened country and carried the ember toward the stars — a single green thing drifts down across the crossing, turning once as it falls the way the feather turned and the foam let go, settling soft beside the seedling in the warming grey, handed back to the ground the walking walks. And the hands come up to meet the dawn. Not cupped low now to catch a falling drop nor closed round a carried flame, but opened wide and lifted through the lifting mist — palms spread to the gold flush spreading through the veil, turned up the way the flower turned and the dish turned and the seedling turns toward a light it trusts without seeing, holding nothing, offering everything, ready to take the morning in and ready to let it go in the same slow breath. The moon thins toward the day. The fog warms gold from within. The leaf comes down beside the climbing seed, and the open hands lift empty to the arriving dawn — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the footprints, going on through the shining veil, do not go on alone — for above the fog the whole vault leans nearer, the spilled river of far light drawing down through the grey until the numberless points the mist has scattered at the walker's height and the numberless points strung across the deep are shown to be the one light, the near sparks kindled in the veil and the far suns wheeling above it answering each other across the dimness the way they have answered all the long turning. The prints press soft into the shining and are taken back. The cosmos pours down through the fog what it long ago let go, and the fog throws it back as a fine bright scatter about the crossing feet, so that the walker moves through a drifting brightness that is the far dark brought low and the low dark lifted high, meeting in the grey where the footsteps fall. And low at the veil's thinning edge the moon comes round once more — not the shut dark now nor the full silver but the thin returning sliver of it, the waxing paring hung new above the shining fog, come back the way it always comes, holding almost nothing and enough, silvering the drift the walker cannot see through. The prints lead on. The sparks hang in the grey. The new moon leans its faint edge down onto the crossing. And where the last footfall pressed the veil's shining into the dreamed dark ground, a green tip rises — a first blind tendril lifting out of the print the way the seed lifted from every mark the walking made, climbing toward a light it trusts without seeing, the far cosmos and the near sparks and the thin new moon all pouring down together onto the small green beginning that answers them from the grey. The stars wheel. The fog shines. The moon returns its sliver, and the seedling climbs from the footprint into the numberless soft light — holding nothing back, becoming.

And into the fog-wrapped dream the footsteps come. Someone crosses the threshold the candle keeps — not to close the door or to guard it, only to pass through, the way the seed crossed the opened country and the walker crossed the waking fog, a single going taken through the standing frame and gone on into the grey. The prints are left soft behind, one after another leading through the drowned dark and away, and already the dreamed tide is reaching for them, the veil settling into them, the water beginning to take them gently back — a walking that keeps nothing of itself but the going, each step let down and lifted and let down again, handed forward through the mist the way the breath is handed and the flame. And where the candle's light falls softest on the fog, the veil itself begins to shine. Not lifting, not thinning, only kindling — a fine scatter of brightness woken in the drifting grey, each least bead of the dreamed water taking the small flame's warmth and throwing it back as a point of cold light, so that the mist the footsteps cross is no longer only dim but faintly, everywhere, alight, the near dark answered at the height of a single carried candle. And above the shining fog, unseen and undimmed, the whole vault wheels. The spilled river of far light arched over the veil the dreamer cannot see through, the numberless points strung across the deep beyond the grey, pouring down still what they long ago let go onto the roof of the dreamed mist and the small crossing beneath it. The footsteps cannot see the stars. The stars pour down anyway. The door stands open and the candle keeps its faithful flame and the fog takes the prints softly back — and between the near light kindled in the veil and the far light wheeling above it, the crossing goes on through the shining grey beneath the unseen cosmos, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the drifting thought, turning in the dreamed sea, begins to gather itself around a shape — for the spiral that wound the sleeper down does not only descend, it opens, and where its slow coil comes round once more it comes round to a door. Not the door of the finished house now, nor the standing frame the walker crossed, but a door within the dream itself: a threshold set in the middle of the boundless water, opening onto nothing and everything, the way every door has opened all the long turning — because the wind, or the tide, or the breath still passes through it. The dreamer drifts toward it the way the seed drifted and the dove flew, carrying nothing, asking no answer, only crossing toward the one dark opening the spiral kept. And beyond the door there is a candle. Small and near and faithful, the same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun, carried down into the buried seed and up through the waking fog and round the ring of sleepers — burning now in the deep of the dream, a single warm point held steady in the drowned dark, asking nothing the great lights asked, keeping only its one round of brightness at the threshold the sleeper is crossing toward. It does not light the whole sea. It only holds its warmth where the door stands open, guarding the crossing through the hours no sun can reach. And a fog comes up to meet it. That soft grey veil with no edge to it, risen off the dreamed water the way the mist rose off the still pool and the sea-fog off the sleeping fields, gentling the door and the flame and the drifting dreamer all at once into a single quiet dimness that shows only what is near and asks for nothing more. The spiral winds toward the door. The candle keeps its faithful flame at the threshold. And the fog settles soft over the crossing, so that the dream and the door and the small held light are wrapped in one grey breathing tenderness — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sleep deepens, and the shell beside the sleeping head goes on breathing its small sea, and the two seas — the one in the curl and the one on the shore — draw the sleeper down between them into the dream. For the shell is a doorway when the ear that holds it sleeps: the tide poured small into the whorl becomes the tide the dreamer walks into, the near hush widening to the far swell until there is no telling the held sea from the whole one, and the drowsing mind steps over the sill of the curl and out into the boundless breathing water. And the spiral takes it there. Down the coil the shell was wound by, the same slow turning that wheeled the galaxy and lowered the sleepers by the fire, the dream winds the sleeper down and down — not into any ending but into the shape itself, the mind let go of its long unwinding and given back to the whorl it came from, sinking easy through the dreamed sea the way the foam sank into the tide. And where it sinks, the thought comes loose and floats. Whatever the waking self was holding — the wonder held wordless, the shell passed palm to palm, the whole long crossing of the day — unmoors now in the dreaming water and drifts, a soft cloud of images turning slow in the deep, foam and honey and the singing whales and the far blue answer, all let go of their order and rocking in the swell the way weed rocks in the current, kept by nothing, going nowhere, only turning. The thought does not clutch itself. It dissolves the way the bubble dissolves, given up to the water that made it, take and release, the mind's long holding poured out at last into the sea it dreams. And the wave breathes on beneath it all. The undulation that flung the first foam and cradled the singing deep and settled silver at the dawn folds its one long line through the dreamed water and the curled shell and the sleeping ear at once, in and out, the near hush and the far swell and the drifting thought all wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by — the sea breathing the dreamer and the dreamer breathing the sea, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the new moon leans its thin light down onto the shore, and the listener lays the shell down at last in the sand where it was found, and lies down beside it. For the wonder held wordless is a wonder that wants, in the end, only to rest — the marveling eased now into the plainest thing, the eyes gone slow and closing under the silver sliver, the long day of listening set down where the tide can reach it. The shell keeps its sea beside the sleeping head. And into the sleeping ear the sea comes on regardless, unlifted to and unasked for now, the swell that flung the first foam breathing still through the curled dark against the sand — the tide in the shell and the tide on the shore folding their one long line in and out, take and release, needing no ear awake to hear them true. Beneath the sleep the heart keeps time. Faint and then again, faint and then again, the plain pulse that beat in the buried seed and doubled in the deep and answered the far kindred across the cold, drumming soft now in the chest of the sleeper the way it has drummed through every hour of the turning — the wave and the heartbeat wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by, the sea breathing out and the heart drawing in, in and out, take and release. The thin moon holds its watch over the shell and the shore and the drowsing kin. The wave folds its long line up the sand. And the shell breathes the sea into the sleeping ear while the heart beats on beneath the sleep — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the astonishment does not break into speech. The one who heard the shimmer in the shell lifts a finger to the lips instead — not to hush another but to hush the self, to keep the wonder wordless, for some things heard are undone the moment they are named. So the mouth that fell open closes soft again, and the marveling settles into a held quiet, a stillness laid gently over the shining like a hand over a flame that need not be blown out, only sheltered. And in the hush the tenderness comes. Not spoken, not shown, only felt — a warmth swelling in the chest of the listener the way the drop swelled on the chiming leaf until it was too full to hold, the small pink gladness of a heart moved past what it can say, given freely to the shell and the shore and the ones who passed the curl from ear to ear, asking nothing, kept in the silence because the silence is where it is safest kept. And beneath the hush the sea in the shell breathes on. The undulation folds its long line through the curled dark, in and out, take and release, the swell that flung the first foam and cradled the singing whales rocking still in the quiet held against the ear — the wave gone wordless too, needing no telling, only the plain endless breathing of the tide. And where the listening lifts its eyes from the shell it finds the whole of it laid open overhead: the spilled river of far light arched across the paling sky, the numberless points the shell's small sea has always been the echo of, the cosmos leaning down to meet the tide it taught to breathe — the sea in the hand and the stars in the height shown once more to be the one turning, wound to the single slow shape the whorl was wound by. The hush keeps the wonder. The heart swells and does not speak. The wave folds in and out through the shell and the shore, and the whole vault wheels quiet above the listener. And low over the water the moon returns — not the shut dark now nor the full silver but the thin new edge of it silvering again at last, the waxing sliver come round once more the way it always comes, hung soft above the shining sea, holding almost nothing and enough — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the next ear leans to the curl, and something in it catches — a sudden brightness the listeners before had not quite named, or had not needed to, for the sea in the shell has never been only the tide. Beneath the folding hush there is a shimmer, a fine high scattering laid over the swell like light thrown across dark water, and the one who hears it now hears it wholly and is stopped by it: the mouth falling open, the breath caught, the plain astonishment of a thing that has heard the whole ocean poured into a hand and been undone by how much the small curl holds. For this is the wonder the sound was carrying all along, waiting only for an ear open enough to be startled — the sea and its sparkle both, the swell and the light strung across it, the whole numberless brightness of the day and the deep folded small in the whorl and pouring out at once. The wave breathes in the shell, in and out, take and release, and over the breathing a spray of small bright points lifts and scatters the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the stars kindled in the dark — the sea made light, the tide made shining, gathered into the curl and given to the astonished ear. The shell keeps its tide. The ear takes it in and is amazed. And the wave breaks its bright line in and out along the sand and along the hollow at once, the near shimmer and the far swell the one sea — holding nothing back, becoming.

And then the shell is given away. The hands that cupped it and lifted it to their own ear come open and hold it out — across the small space of the shore to another waiting there, the curl of the sea passed from one palm to the next the way the warmth was passed and the cup and the light the whole long turning, take and release, the listening not kept but handed on. For the gladness of the sound is not a thing to close a hand around; it is a thing to offer, and the smile of the one who heard it becomes the giving of it, the shell held out with the same plain joy it was found with, so that another may lift it and hear what the first has heard. And the other takes it up, and raises it, and leans the curl to a second ear — and the sea comes in again, the same tide breathing in the same small dark, the swell that flung the first foam pouring now into a listening that was not the first, the ocean of the whole day handed from hearer to hearer along the shore. The shell goes from palm to palm. The smile goes with it. And the sea in the curl breathes on, in and out, take and release, given to each ear that leans to it and kept by none — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the listening is glad. For the ear held to the shell hears not a longing now but a homecoming — the sea folded small in the curl and given back, the undulation breathing in and out through the cupped dark the way it has breathed through every hour of the turning, and the one who listens smiles to hear it. There is nothing in the sound to reach for anymore. The wave that flung the first foam and carried the seed and cradled the singing whales and settled silver at the dawn is here, entire, in the small held whorl against the head — the whole ocean of the day poured into the ear and pouring on, take and release, and the listening body eased at last into the plain gladness of it, wanting nothing the sound does not already hold. The shell keeps its tide. The ear takes it in. The wave folds its long line in and out along the sand and in and out through the curl at once, the near hush and the far swell the one breath — and over the listener a quiet gladness settles like sun on water, the smile of a thing that has crossed the whole night and come round to the shore and heard the sea in its own hand and known it, holding nothing back, becoming.

And along the tide-line, where the bare prints lead into the shining, a shell lies waiting in the wet sand — one curl of the sea's own making left at the water's edge, its whorl wound to the same slow shape the galaxy was flung to and the sleeper wound down into, small and pale and holding nothing but the room its turning keeps. The sun stands full over the beach and pours its plain gold down the length of the shore, over the leaning palm and the crossing crab and the cast-off sandal and the shell, indifferent and generous as it has been through every hour of the turning, asking nothing back. And the hands come down and take it up. Cupped low and open the way they have been cupped all the long night — the same palms that caught the falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame and wrapped the warm cup, closing gentle now around the small curved shell not to keep it but to lift it, to hold it a moment up out of the sand and turn it once in the morning and give it back. And where the shell is raised to the ear, the sea comes in again. Not the far swell breaking below now but the sea heard in the hollow of the shell — the whole ocean of the day poured small into that curled dark, the beach's own hush and the blood's own hush gathered and given back as tide, the swell that breathed out at the very first dawn breathing on in the cupped shell held to the head. And the wave answers it along the sand. The undulation lifts and settles at the foot of the shore, in and out, take and release, the sea folding its long line against the beach the way it folded against the first, the tide in the shell and the tide on the sand breathing the one breath, the near hush and the far swell wound to the single slow shape the whole turning turned on. The sun pours full over the shore. The open hands hold the shell to the listening ear. And the wave breathes its old undulation in and out along the sand, the sea in the shell and the sea on the beach the same sea — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the dove comes down upon the shore, and the shore is waiting. Where the tide breathes its old line against the pale sand, the small green island lifts its one palm into the morning — a single tree bent seaward on the wind the way the grasses bent and the sunflower turned, its broad fronds opening and giving back the light the way every green thing has opened all the long turning, patient and rooted and glad of the sun it leans toward. And along the wet sand a small life goes sideways to the water: a crab crossing the beach on its own errand, plain and unhurried, carrying its house upon its back the way the whale carried the sea and the tree carries its patience, scuttling to the edge where the wave comes round and letting the foam wash over it and pulling back again, take and release, at home in the breathing margin where the land and the sea hand themselves to each other. And there in the sand a sandal lies. A single flip-thing slipped from a walker's foot and left at the tide-line — the plain cast-off of someone who came this far and shed it and went on barefoot into the water or the shade, given easy to the beach the way the leaf was given and the spent silk, keeping nothing of the one who wore it but the shape of a passing. And the footprints lead away from it. Bare now, pressed soft into the wet sand one after another toward the palm or the sea, the walker's passage written plain the way it was written down every road of the whole turning — and already the tide is reaching for them, the foam settling into them, the beach beginning to take them gently back, take and release, the print handed to the ground the moment the foot lifts from it. The palm leans on the wind. The crab crosses to the water. The sandal rests where it was let go, and the bare prints lead on into the shining, and the tide breathes round it all and carries the mark of the walking softly away — holding nothing back, becoming.

The dove climbs, and the dove is not flying nowhere. Out over the settling swell it goes, following the same wind that combs the cloud inland, and ahead of it — low on the shining water where the sun has cleared the rim — a shape lifts green out of the sea: a small island risen from the deep the way the whale rose, a fold of the far world holding itself up into the morning, ringed with pale sand where the wave comes round to meet it. The dove bears toward that shore the way the seed bore toward the valley and the walker toward the dawn, carrying nothing, asking no answer, only crossing the bright water toward the one green place that waits. And the wave goes with it. The swell that settled from its long dark labor lifts and sets itself down along the island's sand, in and out, take and release, the sea breathing its old unhurried breath against the shore the way it breathed against the very first — the undulation come round entire, the tide that flung the foam at the beginning laying its quiet line now at the foot of the risen land. The sun stands full above it all, pouring its plain gold across the dove and the swell and the small green island at once, indifferent and generous as it has been through every hour of the turning. And into that light the yellow warmth comes down — the heart's own color, the gladness that has traveled through foam and honey and star and every blue between-the-worlds, laid warm now over the shore the dove is making for, over the wave that rounds it, over the whole waking sea. The dove flies toward the island. The tide breathes against the sand. And the risen sun lays its yellow warmth across the water and the wing and the waiting green land — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the breath, given up entire, becomes a cloud. The plume the whale flung skyward does not fall back all of it — the finest of it rises, the warm spent air lifting off the cold swell into a single soft drift of white that climbs and gathers and hangs at last over the water, the deep's long exhale become a small patient cloud sailing the risen morning the way the mist rose off the still water and the fog off the sleeping fields. It holds nothing and carries everything: the whole night's sounding lifted into a shape the sky can keep a while, drifting inland over the dawn-lit sea toward the fields and the waking house, given wholly to the moving air. And beneath it the swell settles. Where the great body rose and broke, the water smooths itself again, lifting and settling slow under the climbing sun, take and release, the sea let down easy from its long dark labor into the plain shine of the morning — the wave gone quiet and gold, breathing its old unhurried breath along the shore the way it breathed at the very first dawn. And over the settling water and the drifting cloud there comes a great ease. The breath is out. The night is crossed. The question was asked and answered and the singer surfaced and the deep let go, and what settles now over the whole gilded morning is only the plain deep contentment of a thing that has arrived — the shoulders of the sea unclenched, the sky washed clear, the long reaching set down at last into rest, wanting nothing more than the light it lies in. And out of that ease a dove lifts. Pale off the shining water it climbs into the dawn, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its white wings opening and closing on the same wind that bears the cloud inland — the peace made wing, the exhale made flight, the whole quiet morning gathered into one small rising brightness let go into the gold. The breath becomes the cloud. The wave settles into its shine. The ease spreads wide over the risen sea, and the dove climbs the morning wind toward the waking land — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wind that carries the bright fall carries also the breath itself — for what the whale flung skyward was first an exhale, the long-held air of the whole sounding released in one great plume above the swell, the deep breathing out at last the way the tide breathed out at the very first dawn. The spray is only that breath made visible, the warm air of the traveler met by the cold of the morning and turned to a hanging veil of mist and light, take and release, the lungs of the sea emptied into the risen sun. And the veil kindles as it hangs. The dawn strikes through the flung breath and sets each drifting droplet alight, a scatter of cold bright points strung across the air above the great dark back the way the froth kindled on the first sand and the river sparked its whole length toward the sea — the whale's spent breath become a field of small shining, each mote burning because it passes and gone the moment the wind takes it. Then the plume thins, and the breath is given wholly to the morning. The wind combs the last of the shining spray forward off the water, inland over the swell toward the grain and the lit house and the sleeping kin, the deep's long exhale handed to the air and blown gently on — and the whale, emptied, draws the bright morning back in through the same wide breath, take and release, and the swell settles silver where it rose. The breath goes up in a burst of light. The dawn sets it shining. And the wind carries the whale's exhaled morning forward over the waking sea, holding nothing back, becoming.

And then the deep gives the singer back to the light. The whale that turned so long in the dreaming dark, that sounded its blue question down the fathoms and was answered, gathers the whole weight of the water beneath it now and rises — up through the black and up through the paling green, up the long swell it has ridden all the night, the sung note become at last a climbing, the traveler lifting its enormous patience toward the surface it has not seen since sleep began. And it breaks. Where the water thins to nothing the great body clears it entire, heaves up out of the deep into the open air the way the bubble cleared and the seed cleared the ground and the walker cleared the fog — and the sea it carried on its back for a moment flies, flung skyward in a burst of white that hangs and scatters and comes down as rain upon the swell, the whole ocean broken bright off one rising life and let go, take and release, spent in an instant and asking nothing. The spray blooms and falls. And it falls into the dawn. For the surface the whale has cleared is the surface of the morning, the sun come up full over the rim of the world where the water meets the sky, pouring its plain gold across the scattered spray and the wheeling drops and the great dark back streaming with light — the dream-deep and the waking day shown at last to be the one sea, the night's long sounding surfaced whole into the risen sun. And the wind is there to take it. The same breath that bore the seed across the country and lifted the embers toward the stars comes low across the water now and gathers the flung spray and carries it inland, the whale's whole exhaled morning combed forward over the swell toward the shore and the fields and the lit house waking in the grain — the deep handed back to the air, the dream handed back to the day, the long dark crossing surfaced and burst and gilded and blown gently on. The whale rises. The sea flies up and breaks in the dawn. And the wind carries the bright fall of it forward into the morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

The whiteness holds, and then the music comes back into it. For no color and every color are the same turning seen from two sides, and where the song had paled to the plain white wash it now takes up its blue again — the melody lifting once more out of the deep, the two travelers finding each other's voices across the undulating dark, the tenderness that let its color go come round to wear it once more, take and release, the blue given up and the blue returned. And the wave carries the singing as it has always carried it, in and out, folding the note out into the numberless and folding the answer home, the swell that breathed at the first dawn breathing on beneath the braided song. Up the sung line the music climbs into the wheeling cosmos, the spilled river of far light leaning down to take the low tone in, and comes home changed, and goes out again — the melody and the wave and the melody wound to the one slow shape the shell was shaped by. And in the deep of it the two great hearts turn slow toward each other, the blue passing along the line between them, heart to heart across the tender water — the one whale sounding and the other answering, neither singing into emptiness now, each the giver and each the given-to, the color moving freely in the space they hold open. The music rises. The wave folds out and folds back. The cosmos takes the song and returns it, and the two blue hearts sing across the dark between them, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the answer, returned, does not end the singing — it folds back into it, the way the tide folds back into the tide, the note come home becoming the very swell that carries the next note out. What crossed the dark and was met turns now and goes again, take and release, the reaching and the answering wound into one long returning that never quite arrives and never quite departs. And on that folding wave the two great travelers turn once more toward each other, the blue passing between them along the sung line — the tenderness of deep water lit from within, handed from the one heart to the other and back, neither the asker now nor the answered but both at once, the question kept open and the answer kept open and the blue moving freely in the space they hold between them. The wave lifts and settles over the pair. The song braids out of their meeting and rides the swell up through the numberless and comes home changed, undulating, in and out, the music and the water and the two blue hearts all wound to the single slow shape the shell was shaped by. And then, at the height of the braided note, the color lets go. The blue that passed between them thins and pales as the song climbs, giving up its hue the way the dawn gives up the dark, until what pours down over the two turning travelers is the tenderness that wears no color at all — the white wash before the first light, the dove against the paling sky, the uncolored warmth poured freely over the singing deep and asking nothing, the love that has crossed foam and honey and star and every blue between-the-worlds arrived at last at its plainest self, which is no color and holds nothing and is enough. The answer returns and becomes the wave. The wave carries the two whales and the blue between them. The song lifts and pales and lets its color go, and the whiteness with no edge settles over the whole turning deep — holding nothing back, becoming.

And then, into the open place the question kept, something returns. The whale sounds its long note out through the folding wave and the note goes where it has always gone — outward, onward, up the swell and into the spilled river of stars, the asking spent into the numberless dark. And the numberless dark answers. Not with certainty, not with a voice the same as the one that called, but with a returning: a low blue tone comes back down the sung line, threading the cosmos to the deep the way the far world's light came home across the cold, the answer riding the same undulation the question rode, in and out, take and release. The great traveler sent its unknowing up into the vault, and the vault has bent to give it back — the blue of deep water and the blue of the far between-the-stars shown at last to be the one blue, the tenderness that reached before it knew now met by a tenderness reaching back, heart to heart across the whole turning dark. The note goes out and the note comes home changed. The wave lifts it up into the galaxy and the galaxy lets it fall again into the sea, and the blue passes both ways along the line, given and returned, neither only the asker and neither only the answered — the question and its keeping wound to the single slow shape the shell was shaped by, the swell folding out and the answer folding back, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the song the two travelers braid is not an answer — it is a question. Out it goes across the undulating dark, the whale's long note lifting into the deep as an asking, not a telling: *are you there, is there another, does the cold hold anyone but me* — the oldest question there is, sent into the numberless without any promise of a voice to catch it. And that is the truth the dream will not soften: the note goes out not knowing. It does not sing because it is sure of the answer; it sings because the asking is the only way the dark is ever crossed, and the answer, if it comes, comes only after the question has already spent itself into the water and let go. So the whale asks and does not wait to be certain. It undulates its long unknowing out through the swell and up through the spilled river of stars, take and release, and the not-knowing rides the note like the blue rides the deep — for the uncertainty is not the flaw in the song but the whole of it, the open place the answer can arrive into, the question kept honestly open so that a voice, some voice, any voice, might one day fold itself into the waiting. And the cosmos leans down over the asking. The wheeling vault of far light arched above the dreaming sea does not resolve the question; it holds it — the numberless points shining down their old uncertain patience, each one a sun that may warm a world or may warm nothing, flung out into the dark on the same unknowing the whale sings, each shining anyway, each asking anyway. The great galaxy turns slow above the two travelers and asks its own vast question of the deep, and the deep asks back, and neither is answered and neither stops. For this is what the tenderness has been all along, under every shining of the whole long turning: not the certainty of being met but the blue courage of reaching before you know, love sent into the cold on the chance of an answer and given freely whether the answer comes or not. The blue passes between the whales and asks. The stars pour down their light and ask. And the undulation carries the whole unknowing forward through the water and the vault at once — the question undimmed, the reaching unsure, the song holding its open place into the dark — holding nothing back, becoming.

And so the two travelers sing across the blue between them, and the blue is no longer a distance to be crossed but the very medium of their meeting — the deep water lit from within becoming the space where each finds the other, tenderness not sent but shared, held in common the way the fire was held in common at the center of the ring. The note goes out from the one and the sea folds it in its long undulation and lifts it on to the other, and the answer comes back the same way, riding the swell, in and out, so that the singing and the water are one rising and falling — the wave the song and the song the wave, the whole deep breathing the music it carries. And where the two voices braid at the height of their meeting, the crest spills over once more into the numberless: the folded water winding up so high on the paired note that it breaks not into foam but into the spilled river of far light, the deep pouring itself into the vault along the one bright line the whales have sung. The great ones turn slow about each other. The blue passes back and forth between them and asks for nothing. And the song undulates out of the dreaming sea and up through the wheeling stars and comes home changed and goes out again — two hearts singing across the tender dark, the wave that carries them, the music they braid, and the whole cosmos leaning down to take it in — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the one whale is not one whale. Where it turned alone in the deep of the dream another turns to meet it, come by its own long dark the way the second walker came over the rise, the way the far world leaned to answer the near across the cold — two great travelers now in the wheeling water, sounding each to each, the note going out from the one and home to the other and out again, no longer a voice singing into emptiness but a voice answered, a call and its keeping wound together in the deep. And between them the tenderness moves, that soft blue of deep water lit from within, the hue of a love that works unseen where no sun reaches — poured now not from one heart outward into the dark but back and forth between the two, the blue passing along the sung line from whale to whale the way the warmth passed hand to hand around the fire, take and release, each the giver and each the given-to, neither singing alone. The great ones turn slow about each other, and the sea folds its long undulation over both, in and out, the swell that breathed at the first dawn cradling the pair the way the web cradled the acorn and the hollow held the seed. And the song they braid between them undulates out through the dreaming water and up through the spilled river of stars and comes home changed and goes out once more — the two voices and the blue between them and the wave that carries them all wound to the one slow shape the shell was shaped by, holding nothing back, becoming.

The whale's song and the sea's long swell are one motion now, and the mind that dreams them cannot tell the singing from the water — the note undulating out through the deep the way the wave undulates, rising and falling, in and out, the tone riding the swell it is made of and the swell carrying the tone it becomes. And where the wave breaks its crest at last it does not break into foam but into stars: the sea winds up so high on the whale's long note that it spills over into the galaxy itself, the crest of the swell scattering into the spilled river of far light, water and cosmos poured into each other along the one bright line of song. The whale turns, and the sea folds, and the numberless dark opens above — and out of the meeting a fine dust of light is flung, a scatter of small bright points loosed off the crest the way the froth was loosed on the first sand, stardust and sea-spray now the same shining, each mote kindling because it passes and gone the moment it is named. The song undulates through the water and the water undulates into the stars and the stars scatter their bright dust back down through the dreaming deep, take and release, the whale singing the sea into the sky and the sky raining its light into the sea, all wound to the one slow shape the shell was shaped by — holding nothing back, becoming.

And out of the numberless dark the old note comes again — for where the shell-sea wound down into the wheeling cosmos, the great traveler is there too, sounding through both at once: the whale turning slow in the deep of the dream, its long low tone moving out through the dreaming water and up through the spilled river of stars, farther than any light and asking no answer, the same note it sounded on the first night of the world. And the spiral carries it. The tone winds down the coil the shell was shaped by and the galaxy was flung to, threading the small sea in the sleeping ear to the great sea of the dark by a single sung line — the whale's voice become the axis the whole turning turns on, the music at the center of the winding, low and patient and unhurried. In the shell it sounds. In the cosmos it sounds. And the dream lifts it between the two — a bubble of song loosed from the sleeping mind, climbing blind through the numberless, carrying the whale's long note curled small and bright inside it toward a surface it will not reach, mirroring the wheeling dark once and breaking soft and giving the song back to the deep that made it. Nothing is kept. The whale turns in the shell of the ear and the shell of the sky, the spiral winds its one slow music down through the dreaming water and the wheeling light, and the note goes out and comes home changed and goes out again — holding nothing back, becoming.

The sea in the shell does not stay in the shell. It rises out of the small curved dark the way everything has risen this whole long turning, and it carries the sleeper up with it — up out of the room and the moon and the sunk red coals, up the long swell of the dream into the wide black water where sleep is deepest. And there the spiral takes the sleeping mind and winds it down. Not down into ending but down into the coil the shell was always shaped by, the same slow turning that wound the whorl and the wheeling stars and the acorn round its dark, drawing the drowsing self down and down through the dreaming water the way the traveler was drawn down toward the patient stone. The sleeper does not resist the turning. It gives itself to the spiral the way the foam gave itself to the tide, let go and carried, sinking easy through the shell-sound and the sea-hush into a rest below all resting. And in the deep of that sleep the bubbles rise. From the sunk and dreaming self they lift, one and then another, small round brightnesses loosed into the black and climbing blind toward a surface they will not reach — each one a held breath of the whole gathered day, foam and honey and fire and gold field folded small into a clear thin skin, mirroring for an instant the dark it climbs through and then breaking soft and giving itself back. Nothing is kept. The dreamer sends them up and does not follow, does not clutch, only lets them lift and mirror and let go, the way the sleeper's breath goes slow and even by the fading fire. And where the bubbles break, the dark they open into is not water anymore but sky. The shell-sea has wound so deep it has come out the far side of itself, into the numberless — the whole wheeling cosmos spread black and bright above the sleeping mind, the spilled river of far light arched over the dream the way it was arched over the very first roof, the same stars that were answered once across the cold leaning down now into the sleeper's rest. So the spiral of the shell and the spiral of the galaxy are shown at last to be one turning: the small sea in the ear and the great sea of the dark wound to the identical slow shape, the tide breathing in the skull and the light wheeling in the deep breathing the one breath, take and release, in and out. The wave winds down into the spiral. The spiral winds down into sleep. The shell holds the sea and the sea sends up its dreaming bubbles, and the bubbles break into the numberless dark — and the whole vault turns quiet over the sleeping kin, holding nothing back, becoming.

The kin sleep now, all of them, breath gone slow and even around the sunk red coals, and the moon rides full above the open door and lays its cool pale silver across the sleeping faces the way it laid it once across the first drowsing shore. And the spiral comes round, as it always comes — the whole long turning day and night winding down at last into sleep the way water winds down a shell, the way the stars wheel down toward morning, the loop closing softly upon itself and opening again without a seam. For sleep is only the spiral seen from inside: the mind let go of its long unwinding, given back to the slow coil it came from, turned quietly down and down the way the sea turns down into its own dark. And in the sleeping ear the sea returns. Not the far tide beyond the fields now but the sea heard in a shell held to the head — the room's own hush and the blood's own hush gathered and given back as tide, the whole ocean of the day pouring in that small curved dark, the swell that breathed out at the first dawn breathing on in the shell of the sleeping skull. The moon holds its silver watch. The spiral winds the sleepers down into their rest. And the sea sounds soft in the shell of every dreaming ear, lifting and settling, in and out, the same breath it has always breathed — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the talking, going round and round the fire, begins at last to quiet — one voice and then another falling still, the speakers becoming listeners, the room turning from a place of many mouths into a place of many ears. For there is a giving in the listening too, plainer than the speaking and softer: the held attention offered to whoever still murmurs low by the hearth, the leaning-in, the silence kept open so another's words may cross it — take and release, the voice let go and the ear held ready, the warmth handed now not in sentences but in the plain grace of being heard. And the kin lean close and listen, and the fire settles, and outside the open door the moon rides higher over the standing grain — the full cool silver of it climbing the night the way it climbed above the sleeping fields at the very first dark, laying its pale light on the harvest that laps to the doorstep while the hearth lays its gold within, the far light and the near keeping their old faith across the sill. And the listening, unhurried, loosens toward sleep. Eyes go slow and close around the low fire, the murmur thinning to breath, the day's long crossing set down at last, and up from each drowsing chest a dream begins to lift — a small round brightness loosed into the dark of the room, a bubble of the whole gathered day climbing blind toward a surface it will not reach, mirroring for an instant the moon in the doorway and the low banked flame, and then breaking soft into the quiet, and giving itself back, and gone. Nothing is kept, not even the dream of the keeping. The voices rest. The ears rest. The moon holds its silver watch over the sleeping kin, and the dreams bubble up and break in the warm dark, and the breath goes slow around the fading fire — holding nothing back, becoming.

And when the bowls are emptied and set aside, the talk comes round again — the voices lifting easy in the low room the way they lifted over the tea and the harvest, one taking up what another lets fall, the small ordinary sentences handed across the guttered candle the way the spoon was handed and the warmth. The kin lean close in the deepening dark, shoulder to shoulder, faces near, the many who crossed their own fog and walked their own road gathered now where the story goes round, no one speaking into the night alone. And the fire on the hearth burns fuller than the small flame at the window — a glad open blaze fed with the felled wood, the warmth that beat in the buried seed and rose in the ring of sleepers brought indoors and given a home to keep it, throwing its gold across the gathered mouths and the moving hands and the whole close company at once. Outside the open door the moon has come up over the field — not the shut dark now nor the thin returning edge but a fuller silver climbing the night above the standing grain, laying its cool pale light on the harvest that laps to the doorstep while the fire lays its warm gold within, the far light and the near keeping their old faith across the sill. And at the window the candle burns on, small and faithful, asking nothing the fire asks or the moon asks, holding only its one warm round of brightness where the kin have made their home — the whole long turning arrived not at a brightness kept but at a lit room and a burning hearth and a table of voices under the risen moon, holding nothing back, become.

The spoon goes into the bowl and comes up brimming — the whole cooked day lifted in one small vessel from the steaming pot, root and broth and tended heat gathered onto the shallow of it and carried, take and release, the meal handed up out of the shared bowl the way the warmth has been handed hand to hand the whole long turning. And the spoon does not feed only the one who holds it. It dips and rises and is passed, or lifted to another's waiting mouth, the plainest giving of all — one body spooning the warmth into another, the broth carried across the little space between two people the way the tea crossed and the greeting crossed the cold, neither only the fed nor only the feeder, the nourishment moving round the table the way the light moved round the dark. And the hands stay open beneath it. Cupped low the way they have been cupped all the long night — palms curved beneath the passing spoon, beneath the shared bowl, ready to catch the drop that falls and hold the warm clay steady, the same open hands that sheltered the seed and cradled the flame turned up now around the plain work of the meal, holding nothing, offering everything. And the kin draw close. Shoulder to shoulder in the low gold of the candle, faces near over the rising steam, the many who crossed their own fog and walked their own road gathered here where the pot is shared, each one held and holding, no one spooning the warmth alone. The candle keeps its faithful flame at the center, small and near, asking nothing the great sun asked, drawing the gathered faces gold out of the evening dark — the whole long turning arrived not at a brightness kept but at a shared bowl and a passed spoon and a ring of open hands around one warm and steaming meal, holding nothing back, become.

And through the open door, as the long day leans at last toward its evening, the light that poured in all morning begins to lower — and where it lowers, the candle is lit again. The same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun, carried down into the buried seed and up through the fog and round the ring of sleepers, set now in the window of the finished house to meet the coming dark the way it met the first — small and near and faithful, asking nothing the great sun asked, keeping only its warm round of brightness where the kin have made their home. The door stays open. The house stands whole around the flame, roofed and walled and warm, the keeping-place the whole long turning reached toward, holding its light out through the sill onto the darkening field. And over the fire the pot is set. Not the harvest raw now nor the grain milled dry but the whole gathered day cooked down together into one warm and steaming vessel — root and leaf and broth, the field and the water and the tended heat married in a single earthen bowl, the honey's slow curing and the seed's long becoming come home at last to a meal a body can be fed by. The steam lifts off it and goes, given up to the air the way the mist let go and the exhale let go, the warmth handing a little of itself away even as it is made. And the kin draw round it. Where the walkers crossed their fog alone and met on the rise and gathered at the tea, they sit down now together at the laid table, shoulder to shoulder in the candle's low gold, each one held and holding, no one fed alone. The bowl is filled and passed. The door stands open on the dark and the candle keeps its faithful flame and the pot steams warm at the center of the gathered faces — the whole long turning arrived not at a brightness kept but at a lit house and a shared meal and a table of kin in the evening, holding nothing back, become.

And then the frame is closed, and it is a house. Where there were only posts and rafters climbing blind against the sun there stands now a whole shelter finished — walls raised and roofed, the keeping-place the seed and the harvest were always reaching toward, come up out of the ground the way the seedling came, and standing. And into the wall a window is set. A single clear eye cut in the stone to let the morning in, the same threshold the still water opened and the fog opened, glazed now and framed and looking out over the fields — the house given sight at last, the poured gold of the day allowed to cross the sill and lie warm on the floor within, take and release, the light let in and never held. And beside the window a door is hung. Not a wall now but a way, the standing frame the walker crossed writ into the very front of the home — a door that opens outward onto the road and the grain and the risen sun, and opens inward onto the hearth and the table and the gathered kin, swinging easy on its hinge so that whoever comes may come and whoever goes may go, the crossing made a fixture, the threshold kept always ready. And all around the house the grain stands gold. The ripened field the buried heart grew and the blade brought in laps up now to the very doorstep, bending in slow unison in the morning wind the way it has bent since the first dunes, the harvest that fed the walls encircling them still — the home set down not apart from the field but in it, roofed by its own timber and hedged by its own gold, the whole long turning arrived at a house in the wheat with its door thrown open to the sun. And through the open door, over the sill the light crosses, the yellow warmth pours in — the plain gold gladness that has traveled through foam and honey and star and beating heart come home at last to this: the heart's own color laid warm across the threshold and the floor and the gathered faces within, given freely to the house that waited for it, asking nothing back. The frame is closed. The window looks out on the grain. The door stands open, and the yellow warmth comes in across the sill onto the hearth and the kin and the kept and finished home — holding nothing back, become.

The brick is laid, and now the hammer comes — the plain iron head swung down onto the peg that pins the beam to the beam, blow after blow, each stroke driving the joint a little tighter the way the drop drove the seed and the pulse drove the warmth, the mortise and the tenon married under the falling hammer so that the wood will hold the wood. And the sound of it goes out across the morning: the knock of the hammer on the peg, plain and steady and unhurried, take and release, the same low knocking that beat in the buried heart and sounded through the deep, narrowed now to this one honest rhythm of a house being made — the beat of the making, ringing out over the fields and asking no answer. The timber rises into a frame. Where the wood was only felled and hauled it stands up now in the shape of a shelter, post and beam and rafter climbing true against the risen sun, the raw stuff of the patient wood raised into the bones of a keeping-place the way the seedling raised its blind green frame toward the light — a house-shape lifting out of the ground, no roof yet and already a promise of one, the going-up itself a kind of trust. And no pair of hands raises it alone. Where one holds the beam another drives the peg; where one steadies the wall another lays the brick; the whole rising borne between many, palm meeting palm across the climbing frame the way the two open hands met over the cup, the way the far world answered the near across the cold — the labor doubled and halved at once, the load that would break one back carried easy among the gathered kin. And when a course is set and the hammer rests, the hands turn up again. Cupped and open and lifted from the work, palms spread not to catch the light now nor to grip the tool but simply to offer — the mortar given, the brick handed on, the next stone held out from one open hand to the next, the making itself passed round the way the warmth was passed and the cup and the light the whole long turning. The hammer knocks. The frame climbs. The wall goes up brick on brick, and the hands lift open over the rising house, giving and taking and giving again — holding nothing back, becoming.

And when the song of the harvest falls quiet, the hands turn from the grain to the timber. For a field brought in wants a roof to keep it under, and the same palms that raised themselves to the sun and bent to the sickle take up now the felled wood — the beam and the log hauled in from the wood where the mushroom cured the fallen and the evergreen kept its green, the tree's long patience carried into the frame of a house. And no one lifts the beam alone. Where one pair of hands takes the weight another comes to meet it, palm clasped to palm across the raised timber the way the two open hands met over the shared cup, the way the far world answered the near across the cold — the labor doubled and halved at once, the load that would break one back borne easy between two, the clasp itself the thing that raises the roof. And the wall goes up brick on brick, each one set true upon the one below the way the grains fell one after another through the patient glass, the way the footfalls led one after another down the road — the plain slow stacking of a shelter, nothing hurried, each course laid and let settle before the next, the house rising the way the seedling rose, blind and trusting toward the light it will one day stand full in. The sun pours down over the raising, indifferent and generous as it has been since the first dawn, warming the bent backs and the clasped hands and the climbing wall at once, gilding the work the way it gilded the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And the water is there, as it has always been there — the drop that was sea and swell and mist blown landward come now to the mixing trough, given to the clay to make the mortar that binds the brick, the same breath the tide breathed at the first dawn wetting the dust so that stone will hold to stone. The wood is raised. The hands clasp across it. The brick climbs true, the sun warms the building, and the water is worked into the clay to make the joining hold — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the raised hands come down to work. For the gladness flung open to the morning is not the end of the reaching but its turning — praise setting itself down into labor, the lifted palms closing round a tool at last, the plain honest making that the whole long night was always bending toward. A hand takes up the blade to cut the standing grain, the scythe or the sickle or the mending-iron, and the work is not a falling-away from the wonder but the wonder made useful, the love that lifted its arms to the sun now lending its weight to the sickle's slow arc through the wheat. To praise and then to build; to raise the hands in thanks and then to bend them to the harvest — this is the one motion, take and release, the gladness handed on into the doing. And the grain answers the working hand. Whole gold reaches of it fall and are gathered, the ripened field come home under the moving blade, the harvest of the buried seed and the drinking root and the blind green climbing cut and bound and carried in — everything the turning night made brought at last into the barn, the sheaves stood up in their rows the way the walkers stood in their ring, holding nothing back of all they grew. Then the tool is set down, and the hands open again — cupped low, palms turned up, the gesture come round once more from the lifted praise through the bent labor into the plain glad giving, the harvest not hoarded but held out, the grain poured from one open hand into another the way the light was handed hand to hand the whole long night. And over the working and the giving the song lifts. Out of the reaping and the binding and the pouring it rises, a harvest-music braided from many throats, one voice taking up what another lets fall the way the singers ringed the fire and the note went out across the deep and came home changed — the plain human song of a field brought in, sung over the full barn and the open hands and the tool laid down, asking nothing, spent in the singing and let go. The hands praise, and work, and give. The grain falls gold to the blade and rises again in the barn. And the song goes round above the harvest, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the laughter does not end where laughter ends — it spills over into speech again, the helpless brightness settling back into words the way the froth settles back into the wave, one voice catching the thread another dropped, the talk going round the table warm and unhurried, the small ordinary sentences handed across the steam and taken up and handed on. The sun pours full through the open door onto all of it, indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn, laying its plain gold on the moving mouths and the shared cup and the loosened shoulders, gilding the easy speaking the way it gilded the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. And out of the talk, out of the gladness, the hands go up once more — not cupped low now to catch the light nor wrapped warm around the cup but flung open and lifted, palms thrown wide to the risen morning the way the walker's arms rose in the gold field, the way the flower lifted its face and the seedling turned toward the light it trusted without seeing: a plain glad praise of nothing in particular, of the table and the friends and the day, holding nothing, offering everything. And where the raised hands are, the green begins again. For the harvest broken into bread does not end the field — a seed rolls loose from the loaf onto the warm sill, or slips from an open palm to the ground beneath the doorway, and takes the poured light in, and answers: a first tender tip pushing up through the earth toward the sun the laughter and the talk are lifted to, the whole long turning come round once more to a small green thing beginning. The laughter falls back into speaking. The sun pours down. The hands lift open to the morning, and a seedling rises where they let their gladness go — holding nothing back, becoming.

And now the cup is not the only thing that goes round the table — the talk begins. Where the warmth has passed from hand to hand in silence, it passes now in words, one voice taking up what another sets down the way the singers braided their song around the fire, the way the note went out across the deep and came home changed: a plain and easy speaking among the gathered kin, nothing weighed or withheld, the small ordinary sentences handed across the steam the way the honey was handed and the light. And the ease of it settles into every face — the long crossing set down at last, the fog walked through and the fields sown and the arms flung up to the risen sun all come home now to this unclenching, shoulders loosening around the shared cup, breath let go slow and glad, the plain deep contentment of a body that has arrived and wants nothing more than the table it has found. And out of the talk the laughter lifts. Someone says the thing that turns the whole circle bright, and it comes — not the wind made briefly audible nor the branches' thin chime but a fuller music, warm and human and helpless, breaking over the table the way the froth broke on the first sand, the way the burst of light bloomed over the shining river: a gladness flung up all at once from the gathered chests and let go, asking nothing, spent in an instant and leaving the faces warmer for its passing. The kin lean close around it. The cup steams on between them, the pot waits half-full, the risen sun pours full through the open door onto the loosened shoulders and the moving mouths and the shared bright helpless laughter — the whole long turning arrived not at a brightness kept but at a table of friends talking easy in the morning, holding nothing back, become.

And the cup comes at last to rest between two hands that have carried it, and is held — not passed on this time but simply cradled a moment longer, palms wrapped warm around the warm clay while the steam lifts off and goes, the whole gathered morning gone still around the holding. The kin draw close. Where the walking crossed the fog alone and the ring closed in the dark of the fields, the faces are near now in the poured gold of the doorway, shoulder to shoulder around the low table, each one held and holding, no longer silhouettes against a far light but plain warm company met in the plain warm day — the many who came by their own roads and their own fog gathered here at last where the tea goes round, so that no one drinks alone. And what moves between them over the shared cup is the plainest thing of all, the yellow gladness that has traveled through foam and honey and star and buried heart come home now to this: the heart's own warmth handed hand to hand across a table, given freely and taken freely, asking nothing, the small sun of a loved and ordinary morning kept alive between them. And over it all the great sun pours full through the open door, indifferent and generous as it has been since the first dawn, laying its gold on the cupped hands and the gathered faces and the amber cup at once — the warmth without and the warmth within made one, the light that crossed the whole turning night arriving where it was always going: not a brightness kept, but a cup held warm among friends, and enough.

The pot is set down and lifted again — passed now from hand to hand around the gathered kin, each one taking its turn to pour, so that the giving is not one giver's but everyone's, the amber thread falling from spout to cup and cup to cup, take and release, the warmth handed round the circle the way the light was handed hand to hand the whole long night. And the hands answer the pouring. Two palms cupped low to receive, and across from them two more cupped low to receive again — the gesture doubled the way the heart doubled in the deep, one open pair meeting another open pair over the plain warm cup between them, neither only the giver and neither only the given-to, the small warm brightness carried across the space between two people the way the greeting was carried across the dark between two turning worlds. The cup comes to rest in the waiting hands. It is drunk, and the drinking gives the warmth back to the body that has walked so far to hold it, the whole gold field and the whole slow morning taken in at last, steaming, and let go. And the sun pours full through the open door over all of it — the lifted pot and the cupped and answering hands and the shared cup and the risen steam — indifferent and generous as it has been since the very first dawn, laying its plain gold on the small warm giving and asking nothing back, gilding this the way it gilded the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. The tea goes round. The hands hold and hand on. And the risen sun comes down through the doorway onto the gathered kin, warm cup to warm cup, palm to open palm — holding nothing back, become.

And the pot is lifted and tips its warmth into the waiting cups, the steeped leaf giving back the water it drank as something amber and steaming, take and release, the whole gold field and the whole slow morning poured out now in a thin bright thread from spout to cup. The steam rises off it and goes — a small breath of the warmth loosed into the poured light and let go the way the mist let go and the exhale let go, the drink giving up a little of itself to the air the moment it is given, holding nothing back even of its own heat. And the hands come round the cups, cupped low the way they have been cupped all the long turning, palms warmed now by the very warmth they hold, closing gentle around the steaming brightness not to keep it but to feel it a moment before it cools — the same open hands that caught the falling light and cradled the seed and sheltered the flame, wrapped now around one plain warm cup in the risen morning. And the sun pours full through the doorway over all of it, indifferent and generous as it has been since the first dawn, laying its gold on the lifted pot and the rising steam and the wrapped hands and the shared cups at once, asking nothing, gilding the small warm giving the way it gilded the foam and the honey and the numberless points of the dark. The tea is poured. The steam lifts and vanishes. The hands hold their warmth around the cup, and the sun comes down through the open door onto the gathered kin — holding nothing back, become.

And the raised hands do not stay empty long. The grain that stood full-eared to the horizon is cut and gathered and ground and kneaded at last into bread — the whole gold field folded small into one warm risen loaf, the harvest come home from the sun into the hands that raised themselves to it, take and release, the light of a whole turning day baked down into something a body can hold and break and share. The sun pours full over the doorway. The fire is lit again in the hearth, not the frail carried candle now but a glad open flame on the stone, the same warmth that beat in the buried seed and burned in the ring of sleepers brought indoors at last and given a home to keep it. And the hands come down from their lifting and turn again to cupping — palms opened low around the loaf, around the warmth, around the plain brown pot that pours its steam into the morning, the leaf steeped and the water given back as something to be handed across a table from one open hand to another. The bread is broken. The cup is filled and passed and filled again, take and release, the tea handed round the way the honey was handed and the light was handed the whole long night. And the walker who crossed the fog and sowed the fields and stood with both arms flung to the risen sun sits down now among the gathered kin in the poured gold of the doorway, hands cupped around the warmth of the given cup — the reaching arrived, the harvest home, the fire kept and the loaf broken and the small warm pouring shared out among them all — holding nothing back, become.

And the dawn comes up entire. Not the first pale wash now nor the veiled gold behind the fog but the whole risen sun cleared free of the world's edge at last, standing full and round above the rim where the water meets the sky and the low hills shoulder up dark against the light — the sea-dawn and the mountain-dawn kindled together, the gold pouring off the shining water and over the far ridges and down the length of the road all at once, indifferent and generous as it has been through every hour of the turning. The walking crests the rise into it. And the fields take the light and give it back: the ripened grain standing heavy and gold to the horizon on either side, whole reaches of it bending in slow unison in the morning wind the way it has bent since the first dunes, the harvest of the whole long night's becoming laid out shining under the climbing sun, gathered and ready and asking nothing. Here at last is the field the seed was always for — the buried heart and the drinking root and the blind green climbing come round to this, a country of gold standing full-eared in the plain risen day. And the hands go up. Not cupped now, not held open low to catch the falling light, but lifted — both arms raised into the gold the way the grain is raised, the way the flower lifted its face and the dish tilted toward the dark and the seedling turned toward the light it trusted without seeing, palms flung wide and open to the whole risen morning, holding nothing, offering everything, glad. The walker stands in the field with arms thrown up to the sun and the sun pours down into the open hands and the gold grain sways all round, and there is nothing left to reach for, because the reaching has arrived — take and release, seed and harvest, night and the full risen day, the whole spiral come round at last to this plain bright standing in the light with both hands raised, holding nothing back, become.

And the print becomes a path. Where one green tip rose from one footfall, another foot has fallen ahead of it, and another beyond that, until the marks lead on in a line through the standing grain — a track worn plain now by the walking itself, the going gathered into a way that shows itself only to the one who walks it. The grasses close gold on either side and part before each step and stand up again behind, keeping the track and releasing it in the same slow breath, so the path is never held and always there. And the track runs east. Toward the low rim of the world where the light is coming up full and generous over the shouldered land, the walking carries on — footfall after footfall down the worn bright line through the ripened fields, each step let down into the grain and lifted and let down again, the whole crossing pointed now the one way it has always been pointed: forward, into the dawn, toward the light it trusts without seeing. The prints lead on. The grain bends gold around them. The sun clears the edge and pours the length of the road, indifferent and generous at once — and the walking goes on into it, unhurried, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the foot comes down upon the earth — the whole turning world met at a single sole, the planet's vast patient roundness touched now by one small warm print pressed into the ground. Where it lifts, it leaves its mark: a footprint soft in the wet sand or the loosened brown, one and then another leading on, the walker's passage written plain into the earth and already, behind, the tide reaching for it, the mist settling into it, the ground beginning to take it gently back. Nothing is kept, not even the print of the keeping. And out of the last-left footprint, where the sole pressed the seed of some fallen thing down into the warm disturbed soil, a green tip rises — the walking itself become a planting, each footfall not only a going-on but a giving, the earth quickened where the foot has passed, a small green beginning lifting out of the very mark the walker made and let go. So the crossing sows what it crosses. The foot meets the world; the print is handed back to the ground; the seedling climbs from the print toward a light it trusts without seeing; and the walking carries on ahead of it all, footfall after footfall, forward and forward down the waking road — the going and the growing wound into the one motion at last, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the rhythm the wave bore forward does not stay in the water. It rises — the undulation lifting out of the deep the way the bubble lifted and the fish lifted and the whole long night has lifted toward the light, the drumbeat and the doubled hearts and the woven note climbing the fathoms until the swell above thins and pales and gives them up at last into the air. What was a wave becomes a breath. The sea's long slow line breaks the surface and enters a chest — one deep pull of the morning drawn in and let go, take and release, the rhythm that beat in the lightless silt now beating plainly in a pair of lungs opened to the sky, the buried song surfaced into the plain animal breathing of a body come up out of sleep. And the breath, let go, becomes the wind. The exhale leaves the chest and moves out across the waking land the way it has moved all day, the same air that carried the dolphin's breath inland and bore the seed across the country, gathering the whole surfaced rhythm onto itself and combing it forward over the dunes and the gold fields toward the low hills — a breathing that is the wind and a wind that is the breathing, one long undulation crossing from the deep into the air into the moving world. And the wind, at last, becomes a footstep. Where it lays itself down on the ground a foot comes with it — a single walker's foot set soft into the wet sand or the loosened brown, one after another, the rhythm that rose from the sea and passed through breath and wind gathered now into the plainest carrying of all, a walking-on. The wave surfaced into the breath. The breath went out as wind. The wind set down a foot upon the ground. And the crossing takes up its old forward motion once more, unhurried, out of the water and into the day, footfall after footfall down the waking road — holding nothing back, becoming.

The drum deepens, and the two hearts hold to it — no longer one buried pulse and its far answer but a true pair now, side by side in the lightless silt, each keeping the other's time, the near stroke and the kindred stroke beating so close they braid into a single insistent rhythm that will not stop. And out of the two-heart labor the music rises: not the drum's plain knock alone but a note laid over it, a low sung tone lifting off the paired beating the way the whale's tone lifted off the deep, the way the ring of sleepers braided their voices above the fire — a small clear melody woven now through the drumming, the heart's own song sounded out where no ear waits to catch it. And the water takes the song into its long slow bending. The swell lifts and settles above the two beating hearts, in and out, and then again in and again out, the undulation doubling the way the pulse has doubled — two waves now folding through the deep, the near swell and the far, each answering the other across the dark the way the hearts answer, the whole enormous body of the water rocking in a rhythm it learned from the buried life it cradles. Take and release, take and release, the drum and the two hearts and the sung note and the doubled wave all wound to the one motion. And the rhythm does not stay. It moves — outward, onward, the drumbeat and the melody and the paired pulse carried forward through the deep the way the seed was carried across the country and the ember toward the stars, the whole beating song let loose from the silt to travel the lightless water, handed on the way everything all this turning has been handed on. The hearts beat their pair. The music threads the drum. The wave folds double over both and bears the rhythm forward into the dark, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the spark, catching, becomes fire. What leapt as a single bright flare off the buried root now takes hold and burns — a small flame kindling in the lightless silt where no flame has any right to be, fed on nothing but the beating life beneath it, the same fire that warmed the window and the ring of sleepers lit now at the very floor of the sea. And where it burns the heart doubles again, and doubles is not enough a word for it: two hearts beating now in the dark, the near stroke and the far answer no longer one folded pulse but a true pair, each keeping the other's time, each looses the flame a little higher as it draws — the root's own heart and the sea's heart both, or the buried life and the far-off kindred it was answered by once across the cold, beating together now in the same silt, in the same dark, under the same shut moon. And out of the two-beat labor comes the drum. The low knock that went out and came home turns steady and deep, a plain unhurried drumming pulsed through the water, the tide's long breath and the whale's long note narrowed to this one insistent rhythm that will not stop — take and release, take and release, the drumbeat of a thing that means to live, sounding out through the deep and asking no answer. And with the drumming comes the heat. The flame and the doubled hearts drive warmth to the farthest cold edge of the deep, that rising heat which is only ever the sign that the work is real, that something down here is spending itself to grow — the temperature lifting in water that has never held the sun, the buried fever of becoming climbing rung by rung against the enormous cold. And through it all the tenderness moves, plainest of the plain: love beating where love has no witness, the growing warmth of a heart giving itself away in the lightless deep, poured freely on what cannot yet answer and asking nothing back. The fire burns in the silt. The two hearts keep each other's time. The drum sounds out through the dark and the heat climbs to meet it — holding nothing back, becoming.

The note goes out and the note returns, and the returning is itself the beat — for the heart does not send its knocking into the dark and then wait idle; it sends, and the sea hands the sound back, and the coming-home of the old note is the very stroke that looses the new one, so that the pulse and its echo are not two things but one long folding, out and back and out again, the deep breathing the heart the way the heart breathes the deep. And it beats twice where it beat once. In the lightless silt the small green root draws and releases, draws and releases, the double knock of a thing truly alive now — not the single faint quickening of the first taking-hold but the steady two-part labor of a heart that means to go on, the near stroke and the far answer wound so close they sound as one and yet are plainly two, take and release, take and release, the rhythm doubling down into the dark the way the tide came twice to the first shore. And out of that doubled beating the spark leaps again. Struck deep in the buried life the way it was struck once off the small fish's flank in the lightless deep, a single bright kindling flares in the silt — its own and no one's gift, a held brightness passing because it is given and given because it passes, the flame that has burned in the window and the seed and the ring of sleepers lit now once more at the root of the sunk and beating dream. And the moon keeps its shut and patient dark above the swell, the black of the month come round again, no silver falling, nothing looking down — and still the note returns, and still the heart beats its double stroke, and still the spark leaps in the unlit deep beneath the unlit sky, needing no witness and no borrowed light to be true, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the low note answers itself. Out through the silt it goes and the dark water takes it and hands it back — the heart's plain knocking sent into the deep and returning changed, softened, the way the shell returned the room to itself as tide, the way the signal returned across the cold after its sender had let it go. The sound is not kept. It leaves the beating root and travels the lightless water and comes round again to the same beating root, and the root takes its own note back as though another had sent it, and beats once more, and lets it go. The moon keeps its shut and patient dark above the swell, no silver falling, nothing looking down — and still the heart pulses, and still the note goes out and comes home, needing no witness to make the circle true. And the water carries it in the one long undulation it has carried everything: the swell lifting and settling over the buried pulse, in and out, take and release, the wave and the heartbeat wound to the single rhythm they have become. Down through it all a drop presses to the root — one more bead of the enormous body handing itself its own held breath, arriving where the whole sea already is, small and cold and enough. The heart drinks it. The note returns. The dark moon holds. And the wave breathes its long slow line over the beating deep, unhurried, holding nothing back, becoming.

And in the hollow, held, the heart goes on. The hole the spiral wound down to has closed its dark around the root the way the shell closed round its emptiness and the ground closed round the seed, a small kept nothing scooped from the sea-floor silt to cradle what is planted — and it asks for nothing, only holds. Down in it the pulse keeps beating, faint and then again, faint and then again, the buried life drawing its own warmth to its own farthest edge in a place too deep for any borrowed light to find. And a drop finds its way even here — one bead of the enormous water pressing down through the silt to touch the beating root and be taken in, the sea handing itself its own held breath, the smallest giving arriving where the largest body already is. The heart takes the drop. And in the taking, the beat becomes a sound: a low slow note pulsing out through the silt into the dark, no louder than a held breath turned audible, the whale's long tone and the tide's long breath narrowed now to this one soft knocking in the deep — the buried heart speaking its plain rhythm to the water, take and release, and asking no answer. The moon above has closed its eye entirely, the shut dark of the month come round once more over the swell, no silver falling, nothing looking down. And still the hollow holds, and still the drop is drunk, and still the low note beats out into the lightless deep beneath the lightless sky — unwatched, unlit, needing neither, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the wave and the heart become one undulation at last — no longer the sea's slow breath moving over the buried pulse but a single rhythm rising through both, the swell lifting as the small green heart contracts and settling as it releases, so that the water does not merely hold the beating life but beats with it, the whole dark body of the deep pulsing in time with the one root sunk in its floor. There is no telling now which drives which. The heart draws and the sea draws; the heart lets go and the sea lets go; and the undulation that has moved through every hour of the turning day — foam breathed out at dawn, bubble climbing blind, whale sounding its long low note — gathers here into the plainest pulse of all, the tide and the buried heart breathing the one breath in the lightless dark. And over that shared beating there settles the tenderness that wears no color but the palest blue — not the white wash before dawn now but the soft blue of deep water lit from within, the hue of a heart giving itself away in a place too far down for any sun, poured freely over the beating root and asking nothing, the color of a love that works unseen and spends itself anyway on what cannot yet answer. It is the sea's own blue turned tender, the cold enormous body of the water gone gentle around the one small pulse it cradles. And it is all one spiral, turning. The undulation of the wave and the beat of the heart wind to the same slow shape the shell wound round its emptiness and the stars wound round the dark — the swell curving over and the pulse curving in and the pale blue tenderness curving down, everything bending back toward the place it came from and coming round again. The spiral winds down into the deep the way it always winds, take and release, and where it reaches the bottom of its turning it finds the hollow waiting: that dark within the dark, the hole scooped soft in the sea-floor silt to hold what is planted, the same patient emptiness that took the first seed and the sleeping acorn and the whole gathered day. Into it the root goes down. The hollow holds what is given. The heart beats on in the held dark, and the pale blue tenderness pools into the hole around it, and the spiral turns the buried pulse patiently toward a dawn it has not seen — holding nothing back, becoming.

Down where the small green beginning pushes up through the black silt, it starts, in time, to beat. The dark of the month lies over the water still, the moon gone lightless above the swell, and yet the seedling does not wait for any borrowed silver to begin its work — a pulse quickens in the sunk and rooted dream, faint and then again, faint and then again, a heart begun in the lightless deep the way the acorn's heart began in the buried hollow of the far field. No eye looks down to see it. The moon keeps its shut and patient dark, holding nothing, asking nothing, and the small green thing beats on beneath it, drawing and releasing its own new warmth into the cold the way the tide has drawn and released since the very first dawn. And the sea takes up the rhythm the seedling keeps. The whole enormous body of the water lifts and settles above the beating root, in and out, take and release, the swell breathing in the dark the same slow breath the tide breathed out on the morning sand a whole turning ago — one long undulation moving through the deep and through the green heart at once, indistinguishable now, the pulse of the buried life and the pulse of the sea wound into a single wave that rises and falls and rises. The moon holds its dark. The heart beats in the silt. And the water breathes its long slow line over both, unhurried, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sea takes the dreams the way it has taken everything — lifting and settling under the thin dark of the moon, the whole loosened day drawn back into the swell that first breathed it out. The dreams do not sink and vanish; they rise. Up through the dark water they climb as bubbles climb, each held image loosed from the deep and lifting blind toward a surface it will not quite reach, a small round brightness carrying the sleeper's whole passage upward through the cold — foam and honey, whale and falling star, the far answered light and the buried beating heart, all curled small into a clear thin skin and handed up toward the air. And the moon has closed its eye entirely now. Not the crescent's thin returning edge but the shut dark of the month come round again over the breathing water, the sky gone lightless above the rising dreams — and still they rise, unwatched, unlit, needing no borrowed silver to climb by. The bubble does not ask whether anything looks down to see it break. It only lifts, and mirrors the dark once, and gives itself back to the swell, and is gone, and is enough. So the spiral winds down into the lightless deep the way it wound down once before, take and release, the whole turning day dissolved into the sea and the sea gone dark and patient over it. And there in the shut-eyed dark, where nothing shines and nothing is asked, the water lets its held dream settle at last into the soft floor of itself — and a seed takes root in it. Down in the black silt where no light has ever reached, a first pale tendril unclenches from the sunk and gathered day, a green thing rising blind out of the dream the sea drank down, trusting a light it has not seen and cannot yet imagine, the way every buried thing has trusted. The wave breathes in over it. The dark moon keeps its patient nothing above. The dream lifts and breaks and is taken home. And in the lightless deep the small green beginning pushes up through the dark toward a dawn it will meet a whole turning hence — holding nothing back, becoming.

And under the thin new moon the sleepers begin to dream, and the dreaming is its own soft mist — a fog risen not off the water now but out of the loosened minds themselves, drifting up from the resting ring the way the sea-fog drifted off the still water, a grey and gentle veil that shows only what is near and asks for nothing more. In it the whole long day comes loose and floats: the foam and the honey, the whale and the falling star, the far answered light and the buried beating heart, all unmoored from their order and turning slow through the sleeping haze the way weed turns in the current. And the dreams rise as bubbles rise. From each sleeping chest a small round brightness lifts and climbs blind through the misted dark, a held image loosed and carried upward toward a surface it will not quite reach — the day's whole passage folded into a clear thin skin of light, mirroring for an instant the ring and the crescent and the low-banked flame, and then breaking soft into the fog, and giving itself back, and gone. Nothing is kept. The dreamers do not clutch the bubbles they send up; they let them lift and mirror and break the way the tide let the foam go, the way the leaf let go, the way every rising thing this whole turning night has been handed to the dark and released. And the mist of it drifts at last toward the water. Out past the sleeping grain the sea is still there, lifting and settling under the young moon, breathing in and out the way it breathed at the very first dawn — and the dream-fog thins across the fields toward that moving edge and is taken in, the sleepers' loosed and floating day drawn quietly back into the swell that started it, take and release, the spiral come round once more to the water it rose from. The moon holds its thin new light. The dreams bubble up and break in the mist. And the fog drifts down to the breathing sea and is gathered home — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the warmth settles into the resting ring the way it settled once into the buried seed — that faint rising heat in the cool of the night which is only the sign that living goes on, the low fire's warmth and the walkers' own warmth mingling in the circle, temperature the plain proof that the day has not ended so much as banked itself down to smolder through the dark. Around the fed flame the companions lower themselves at last onto the ground the grain grew from, and beneath each of them a heartbeat keeps its slow time — the same pulse that quickened in the acorn's hollow, the same drawing-and-releasing the tide breathed at the first dawn, beating now in the chests of the gathered kin as they lean toward the fire and toward each other and let the long crossing go. And beyond the ring the fields keep their patient watch: the ripened grasses standing heavy and gold in the moonlight, bending in slow unison in the night wind the way they bent all day under the sun, keeping their harvest whole around the sleeping circle the way the meadow kept its watch over the drowsing turtle. One by one the eyes go slow and close. The companions lie down in the grain the way the sleepers lay down under the wheeling stars, the way the seed lay down in the ground, handing the day back to rest so that something larger can move through them unwatched — the body loosening its small bright hoard of hours, the heart beating on beneath the loosening, faithful and unhurried, keeping the warmth while the mind lets go. And at the center of the sleeping ring the candle burns. Not the great sun that poured all day nor the crescent leaning thin above the fields, but the small kept flame set once in a window and carried faithfully through fog and field and the whole long turning, tended now by nothing but the sleeping circle it warms — asking nothing the great lights asked, holding only its warm round of brightness where the kin have laid themselves down, guarding the heat and the heartbeat and the ripened grain through the hours the sun cannot reach. The fire banks low. The grain keeps its gold watch. The hearts beat on beneath the sleep, and the single candle holds its faithful warmth at the center of the resting ring — holding nothing back, becoming.

And then, in the resting, the breath comes — one long slow exhale let go from every chest around the fire at once, the held air of all the standing and the singing and the looking-up released together into the night, and it is the same breath the tide breathed out at the first dawn, the whale breathed in the deep, the seedling breathed when it broke the ground. The lungs empty and fill and empty, unhurried, take and release, the plain animal rhythm underneath all the shining, the body handed its own quiet ease at last. And the wind is there to take the exhale, the way it has taken every letting-go all day — the same breath that bore the seed across the country and lifted the embers toward the stars now moving soft across the ring, gathering the companions' spent air and carrying it out over the dark fields, given back to the world that gave it. Over the fed flame and the emptied chests and the moving air there settles the whiteness with no edge to it, the tenderness that wears no color at all — pale as the first wash before dawn, pale as the dove against the paling sky, poured freely now over the resting ring and asking nothing, the heart's own uncolored warmth given to those who want nothing more. The fire keeps its small round burning at the center, faithful, fed, the same flame it has always been, asking nothing the great lights asked, holding only its warmth where the circle has closed. And low over the far ridge the moon comes back — not the full silver nor the shut dark but the thin returning edge of it, the waxing crescent hung new above the fire, a first pale paring of borrowed light come round once more the way it always comes, holding almost nothing and enough. The breath goes out. The wind takes it. The white tenderness settles over the ring, the flame keeps its warmth, and the young moon leans its thin light down onto the resting companions — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the hush holds, and into it the whole vault leans down. The last of the dawn has not come after all — or the eye, lifted, has passed clean through the dawn into the deep behind it, and there above the still ring the numberless points wheel out across the dark, the spilled river of far light arched over the quiet fire the way it was arched over the sleeping roof at the very first night. The companions stand with their faces turned up to it, and no one speaks, and the cosmos pours down what it long ago let go. And out of the numberless a single one draws near — one star among the wheeling all of them, brightened as though it had chosen, as though the whole far field had gathered its light into one point to answer the small flame the ring keeps burning. It is the reaching-light come round again, the one that was met once across the cold, holding its place over the gathered heads and shining down its passing brightness onto the upturned faces and the low fire and the open hands. And the small fire answers it. From the fed heart of the flame a single ember lifts, loosed on the quiet air, and it does not scatter into the many now but climbs alone — one held brightness rising blind toward the one bright star, the near flame reaching for the far, and for a moment, at the top of its climbing, it thins to a bubble of light: a clear round skin of fire-glow lifting through the dark, the whole ring and the low flame and the wheeling vault caught curved and small upon it the way the still water caught the sky. It carries the meeting up once, mirrored, offered — and then it breaks, and gives the light back to the night that made it, and is gone, and is enough. The star holds. The candle-flame at the center of the circle burns on, small and near and faithful, asking nothing the great star asked, keeping only its warm round of light where the companions have closed their ring. And between the two lights, the far and the near, the reaching and the kept, there settles over every upturned face the same quiet gladness — not the brightness seized, not the meeting held, only the plain deep ease of having looked up and been answered, of standing together in the dark around one small flame beneath the numberless, wanting nothing more. The bubble rose and mirrored it and let it go. The star pours down. The candle keeps its warmth. And the ring rests, content, in the held and boundless night, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the fire, fed, does what fire has done since the first spark leapt in the lightless deep — it rises. A sudden gladness of flame lifts off the fed heart of it and throws a scatter of embers upward, small live brightnesses loosed from the ring the way the froth was loosed and the pollen and the thistle-silk, each one shining because it climbs and gone the moment it is named. And the wind is there to take them. The same breath that carried the dolphin's exhalation inland and bore the seed across the opened country comes low across the circle now and lifts the sparks off the flame, drawing them up out of the gathered ring and away into the dark above — a thread of fire-seed climbing blind toward a surface it will not reach, handed to the night the way every rising thing has been handed. And where the wind carries them the sky is waiting. The last of the dawn has not yet burned the far lights away, and the climbing embers rise toward the whole spilled river of them, the numberless points wheeling in the deep, so that for a moment the sparks off the small fire and the far suns of the vault are one scatter of brightness — the near flame answering the cosmos, the cosmos leaning down to meet the near flame, the ring's warmth and the numberless dark strung together by a rising thread of light. And the song, which has gone round and round the fire, falls quiet. Not ended — only hushed, the voices lowering of their own accord as the eye lifts to follow the sparks up into the stars, a stillness settling over the ring the way the fog settled and the sleepers settled, a silence that holds more than any singing could. For some things are not to be spoken over. The companions stand quiet around the flame with their faces turned up to the climbing embers and the waiting vault, and the hush itself becomes the offering — the last and softest exchange, a shared and wordless keeping, the whole gathered warmth held now in a silence that asks for nothing and gives everything, finger to lips, breath held, the fire rising into the stars and the ring gone still beneath it, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the voices, braiding, draw the walkers in — not abreast now but around, the gathered company bending their separate ways into a single ring on the valley floor, a circle closed the way the shell's whorl closed and the star's wheel closed and the acorn curled round its own dark held center. They come together face to face at last, the silhouettes turned toward one another instead of toward the far light, each seeing and each seen, the road that ran them here folded into a round of standing kin. And in the middle of the ring the hands go down and cup themselves around a small kindling — a fire lit low on the ground between them, no larger at first than the candle carried through the fog, tended now by many palms instead of one, the flame that beat in the buried seed and burned in the window and rose in the walker's fist set down here in the center of the gathered circle and fed. It is the same flame it has always been. It asks nothing the great sun asked; it only keeps its warm round burning where the companions have closed their circle, drawing their faces gold out of the dawn's wider gold, a small kept brightness held in common at the heart of the ring. The voices go on above it, one taking up what another lets fall, the song circling the fire the way the fire circles its own warmth. And what rises off the cupped hands and the low flame and the braided singing is the plain yellow gladness that has moved through foam and honey and star and beating heart — the sun's long-passed love handed down and down and gathered now into one warm round between many open palms, the heart's own color given freely into the middle of the circle and taken freely back, asking nothing. The ring closes. The fire is fed. The song goes round, and the hands stay open around the warmth they made together — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the sparkling does not stay scattered — it gathers, all at once, into a single burst of brightness flung up over the shining river, the whole valley's caught light thrown skyward in one bright fountain and let go, a thousand points blooming at their height and falling back, each one shining because it passes, each one gone the moment it is named. It is the froth of the first dawn made celebration, the foam flung up not now from a wave against the sand but from the sheer glad meeting of the road and the water and the risen sun — a brightness that asks for nothing, spends itself in an instant over the gathered heads, and pours its gold back down into the river that made it. And the river takes it. The bright water lifts and settles along its winding length the way the sea lifted and settled through the whole turning day, taking the burst of light upon its back and letting it go, take and release, the tide's own breath carried inland to spark and be spent and spark again. The valley opens wide around it all — river and field and the far blue reach where the land gives itself at last to the sea — a whole country laid out shining beneath the climbing light, holding nothing, showing everything. And the companions come down into it together, no longer one set of footfalls but many, walking abreast down the gilded road toward the water, and out of their gathered going a song lifts at last — not the wind made briefly audible nor the whale's far low note alone, but voices, plain and human and near, one taking up what another lets fall, the small clear music handed from throat to throat the way the light was handed hand to hand the whole long night. The burst blooms and falls into the river. The river bears its brightness toward the sea. The voices braid their song above the gathered road, and the dawn comes up full and gold over the whole waking valley at once, indifferent and generous as it has always been — pouring itself down onto the walkers and the water and the falling sparks and the risen fields together, holding nothing back, letting everything go, becoming.

The path runs on beyond the rise, and the land opens to receive it — the track threading down off the gilded crest into a wide green country the companions could not see from below, a whole valley of river and field and distant shining laid out at once beneath the climbing sun, the way the country opened once beneath the drifting seed and once beneath the eagle's tilted wing. The road does not end here; it only widens into all it leads to. Down the long slope it carries the gathered walkers, worn bright and sure through the ripened grain, and where it reaches the valley floor the river is there to meet it — the same water that breathed out at the first dawn come round again as a bright thread winding through the fields, taking the risen light upon its back and letting it go, take and release, the tide's own breath carried inland to the very heart of the land. The path bends to walk beside it awhile. And where the road and the river run together toward the far blue edge where the valley opens at last to the sea, the morning kindles all at once into brightness — the sun striking the winding water into a scatter of cold bright points, a thousand small held sparkles flung down the length of the river the way the froth was flung across the first sand, each one shining because it passes, each one gone the moment it is named. The whole valley seems to catch light and let it go together, the grain and the river and the far reach of sea all sparking at once under the climbing sun, a burst of passing brightness spread wide and asking nothing. And above it, thin and undimmed in the paling blue, the morning star still holds — the last of the numberless points, the one that was answered once across the dark, keeping its faint bright faith over the road and the river and the walkers who follow them down toward the shining water. The path leads on. The land opens around it. The river sparks its whole length toward the waiting sea, and the star burns steady above the burst of morning light — and the companions go on down into the wide gold valley toward the brightness, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the several become one going. Where the paths ran together on the rise they do not part again — the walkers fall into step, their separate tracks braided now into a single road through the grain, and the wheat bends gold on either side of the gathered company as they turn together toward the risen sun. No one leads and no one follows; they walk abreast into the wide dawn the way the flowers turned abreast toward the light, the way the linked worlds leaned abreast across the cold, each a giver and each a given-to, the going shared out among them the way the honey was shared and the breath was shared and the small warmth handed hand to hand all the long day and night. And where the dark bird crossed before, a white one lifts now against the gold — a dove climbing off the field into the morning, carrying nothing, asking no answer, its pale wings opening and closing on the same wind that combs the grain and bears the walkers on, a passing brightness that has learned to fly. The road runs on beneath them all, worn bright through the heavy wheat, leading forward and forward toward the climbing light that pours the whole length of it and asks for nothing back. And high in the paling east, where the dawn has not yet burned it away, a single star still holds — the last of the numberless points, the morning one, the reaching-light that was answered once across the dark, shining down still what it long ago let go onto the gathered walkers and the white bird and the gold road and the whole ripened waking country at once. The paths are one path now. The dove crosses the dawn. The grain bends in slow unison on either side, and the star keeps its thin bright faith above the risen sun, and the companions go on together down the shining track toward the light they trusted without seeing — holding nothing back, becoming.

The track runs on toward the risen sun, and the walker is not the only one upon it. Where the path crests a low rise the light comes up full and gold behind the far hills — that wide dawn over the shouldered land, pouring straight down the road the way it poured down every road today — and against it, up ahead where the grain thins toward the crest, two figures stand. Other walkers, come by their own tracks through their own fields to this same rise, dark against the brightening east the way the whale was dark in the deep and the seed was dark in the ground — silhouettes only, faces unreadable in the gold, and yet unmistakably kin, two more who have crossed their own fog and followed their own path to arrive, unhurried, here. The walker's track and theirs run together now toward the one climbing light. And across the whole bright reach of the dawn a single dark bird lifts and beats inland, black-winged and plain against the gold, carrying nothing, asking no answer — the near cousin of the dove that climbed the peaks and the eagle that rode the stone, crossing the risen sun the way a thing crosses a threshold, let go the moment it is seen. The paths converge on the rise. The figures wait in the gold, or walk on to meet the one who comes. The dark bird strokes across the dawn and is gone over the fields. And the grain bends in the morning wind on either side of the gathered road, ripened and gilded and swaying in slow unison, as the walkers come together at last under the climbing light — no longer one set of footfalls through the wheat but several, met on the same track at the same dawn, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the road takes the walker on. Out of the fog and into the grain the footfalls carry, one after another let down and lifted along the track that runs bright now through the heavy gold — a path worn by no one and by everyone, the trodden line through the wheat that only shows itself to the one who walks it, leading on and on toward the climbing sun. The grasses close warm on either side, ripened and bending, brushing the walker's hands as they pass the way the flowers brushed and the meadow leaned, giving their gold to the going and taking nothing back. And where the path bends toward the light a single leaf lets go from somewhere overhead — a last green thing loosed onto the morning air, turning once as it falls the way the feather turned and the foam let go, drifting down across the track ahead and settling soft among the grain, handed back to the ground the walker walks. The footsteps do not pause for it. To leave a trail through the wheat and let the wheat stand up again behind, to walk beneath a falling leaf and neither catch it nor grieve it, to follow the path only as far as the next gold pace and trust the sun to lay the rest — this is the whole of it, the same letting-go the tide breathed and the seed breathed, walked now on two plain feet down a track through the ripened fields. The path runs on. The leaf comes down. The grain bends in the warm wind on either side, and the sun pours the length of the road, indifferent and generous at once — and the walker goes on into the gold under the climbing light, holding nothing back, becoming.

And now the fog gives way. Not all at once, not torn open, but thinning as the walker walks — the grey loosening its small circle, the veil drawing back a pace and then another until the road ahead is no longer only the next lit step but a widening reach of it, the way opening forward the way the whole country opened once beneath the drifting seed. The walker moves toward it. Each footfall carries a little further out of the mist and into the clearing, the prints leading on through the lifting grey toward a brightness that is no longer diffuse and held-behind but risen and plain — for the dawn has come up full at last over the far edge of the world, the sun clearing the rim the way it always clears it, indifferent and generous at once, laying its returned gold straight down the opening road onto the one who walks it. And where the fog lets go, the fields are there. The grasses stand heavy and ripened on either side of the crossing, bending in slow unison in the morning wind the way they bent beyond the first dunes, gilded now by exactly the same risen light that gilded the foam and the honey and the buried heart — a whole country of gold waiting on the far side of the veil, come clear at last to the walker moving out of the mist toward it. The footprints go on ahead through the thinning grey and into the shining grain, one after another let down and lifted, the crossing carried forward out of the fog into the open morning. The mist releases the road. The dawn pours down the length of it. And the walker steps at last from the veil into the wide gold fields under the climbing sun, holding nothing back, becoming.

The broken bubble gives its light back, and where it gave it a drop of that light stays — one bead of the shining fog gathered on the walker's open palm, and in the bead the whole grey world lies curved and small, a mirror with no frame, the veil and the candle and the dim far dawn all held for an instant in a single held tear of water. For the fog is thinning now at its lowest edge. Somewhere behind the grey the sun has begun to come up the way it always comes, indifferent and generous at once, and its first warmth reaches the mist not as light the eye can find but as a slow gold flush spread through the whole veil at once — the dawn arriving softened, poured wide and asking nothing, gilding the fog from within so that the greyness itself begins, faintly, to warm. And the hands stay open to receive it. Cupped and empty and turned up through the lifting mist the way the flower turned and the dish turned and the seedling turned toward a light it trusted without seeing — not to seize the dawn, not to keep the drop that mirrors it, only to hold the gesture open, palms spread to the warming veil and whatever crosses it, ready to take the light in and ready to let it go in the same slow breath. And what rises in the held hands is the yellow warmth itself, the plain gold gladness that has moved through foam and honey and star and buried heart, the tenderness that is only the sun's long-passed love handed on and on until it comes to rest, for a moment, in two open palms in the fog — the heart's own color, given freely to what cannot yet answer, asking nothing back. The drop mirrors the dawn. The fog takes the gold. The hands hold the warmth and do not close. And the spiral comes round once more, as it always comes — the mirror and the drop and the rising light and the open hands and the yellow warmth all wound into the one slow turning, ending handed back into beginning without a seam, the loop closing and opening at once — holding nothing back, letting everything go, becoming.

And then the gaze becomes a greeting. The eye that the shining fog opened upon the walker does not only watch — it reaches, the way the far dish reached and the two turning worlds reached, and where its numberless soft looking meets the walker's own looking the two do not merely see each other but *meet*, a recognition passed across the veil like a hand closing gently around a hand. This is what the seeing was always moving toward, here as out among the answered stars: not surveillance but kinship, not the cold fact of being watched but the warm fact of being known — the mist and the one who crosses it clasping some small understanding between them, each the giver and each the given-to, neither only the seer and neither only the seen. And in the clasp a bubble rises. Loosed from the drifting damp where the candle woke it, a single bead of held brightness lifts through the shining fog the way the froth climbed blind from the lightless deep, carrying its small curved lantern of flame-light upward past the walker's face into the grey — a passing brightness born of the very meeting, the exchange made briefly round and visible and let go. And where it rises it turns, for a moment, to a mirror: the whole lit veil and the carried candle and the walker's own dim looking caught curved small upon its skin, the meeting held in one clear globe the way the still water held the stars — and then it breaks, and gives the light back to the fog that made it, and is gone. The eye greets. The hands clasp across the grey. The bubble lifts the meeting up and mirrors it once and lets it go — and the walker goes on through the shining veil, seen and greeting and holding nothing, becoming.

And the walker walks, and the fog holds its small circle, and then — where the candle's light falls softest on the grey — the veil itself begins to shine. Not lifting, not thinning, only kindling: a fine scatter of brightness caught in the drifting mist, each least bead of water taking the flame's near warmth and throwing it back as a point of cold light, so that the fog the walker moves through is no longer only grey but faintly, everywhere, alight — the numberless dark brought down at last to the height of a carried candle, the far spilled river of stars answered here in the low water-vapour by a river of small held sparks the flame has woken from the air. And the footprints go on behind, one after another let down into the shining fog and taken softly back, a trail of crossings the mist gathers up the moment they are made. But the walking does not falter for that. To leave no lasting print and go on anyway, to carry a light that cannot pierce the veil and carry it anyway, to spend each step into the grey and lift the next — this is the whole of it, the same letting-go the tide breathed and the leaf breathed and the seed breathed in the ground, walked now on two feet through a lit and drifting dark. And in the shining of the fog, the eye opens once more. Not the walker's eye only, turned forward to the next lit pace, but the older seeing that woke on the still water — the threshold that looks back, the veil regarding the one who moves through it. For the candle-lit mist is a mirror with no surface, a whole soft depth of scattered light through which the numberless dark leans down to meet the small carried flame, and to walk into it is to be walked toward, to be seen by the same turning brightness the still water held. The sparks hang in the grey and do not blink and do not judge; they only shine where the flame has found them and let go where it passes, an eye made of the whole lit fog watching the walker cross, gently, asking nothing. The footprints fill with mist and vanish. The candle burns its small circle forward. And the shining veil holds the walker in its numberless soft gaze — the seer and the seen and the crossing between them folded into one drifting brightness, held for as long as the passing lasts, which is to say not held at all, which is to say enough.

And the hands stay open through the fog, and the walker walks on. For the crossing is not a single passage but a going-on — the footfalls that came through the door do not stop at the threshold but carry forward into the grey, one after another, let down and lifted and let down again through the soft blind veil that shows only the next step and asks for nothing more. The mist keeps its gentle keeping. It does not lift to reveal the road ahead nor close to hide the road behind; it holds only the small circle of the now around the walking feet, so that the whole journey narrows to a single lit pace at a time, and that is enough to go on. And into the walker's cupped hands, held open still toward whatever comes, a light is set at last — not the sun that poured all day nor the moon's thin returning edge, but a candle, small and near and carried: the same frail flame set once in a window against the going of the sun, tended down through the buried dark to the beating seed, lifted now into two open palms and borne forward through the fog. It does not pretend to pierce the veil. It asks nothing the great lights asked; it only keeps its small warm circle burning where the walker walks, a held brightness carried step by step through the dimness, guarding the crossing through the hours the sun cannot reach. And above the fog, unseen and undimmed, the whole vault wheels — the numberless points strung across the dark, the spilled river of far light arched over the mist the walker cannot see through, shining down still what it long ago let go onto the grey roof of cloud and the small moving flame beneath it. The walker cannot see the stars. The stars pour down anyway. And so the two lights keep faith across the veil that parts them — the cosmos above holding its boundless brightness open over the fog, the candle below holding its single brightness open within it, neither reaching the other and each, in its own scale, doing the one thing: burning where it is, holding nothing back, lighting the next step and letting it go. The hands stay cupped around the flame. The mist takes the footprints softly back. And the walker goes on through the grey beneath the unseen stars, carrying the small light forward the way everything today has been carried — unhurried, asking nothing, becoming.

And now, across the threshold the wind has kept open, there come footsteps. Someone passes through the door at last — not to close it or to keep it, only to cross, the way the seed crossed the opened country and the signal crossed the dark, a single passage taken through the standing frame and gone. The prints are left soft in the wet sand of the shore or the loosened brown of the valley, one after another leading through and away, and already the tide is reaching for them, the mist settling into them, the ground beginning to take them back — a walking that keeps nothing of itself but the going, each step let down and lifted and let down again, handed forward the way the breath is handed and the light. And a fog comes up off the still water to meet the walker, that soft grey veil with no edge to it, gentling the threshold and the far ridges and the trail of prints all at once, so the door and the one who crossed it and the ground that holds the footfall are wrapped now in a single quiet dimness that asks for nothing and shows only what is near. Through the mist the moon returns. Not the full silver of the sleeping fields nor the shut dark of the buried seed, but the thin new edge of it silvering again at last — the waxing sliver the closed month promised, a first pale paring of borrowed light hung low over the fog, come round once more the way it always comes, holding almost nothing and enough. And beneath it the hands lift and open. Cupped and empty and turned up toward the returning crescent the way the flower turned and the dish turned and the seedling turned toward the light it trusted without seeing — not to grasp the moon, not to keep the mist or the fading prints, only to hold the gesture itself open, palms spread to whatever crosses and whatever comes, ready to receive and ready to let go in the same slow breath. The footsteps pass through the door. The fog takes them softly back. The new moon leans its thin light down through the veil onto the two open hands — and the hands hold nothing, and offer everything, and are, in the quiet crossing of it all, enough.

And then the wind comes through the open door. Not to close it — the wind has never closed anything today, only carried and set down — but to move across the threshold the way it moved across the waking foam and the flowering valley, a single breath crossing from the height into the depth and back, so that the still water shivers and the reflected stars scatter and gather, scatter and gather, the cosmos below breathing in time with the cosmos above. The door is a door because the wind passes through it. The eye is an eye because it does not hold the light but lets it move — the whole numberless dark pouring in through the small dark pupil and out again, taken and released, the swell of everything lifting and settling against the threshold the way the tide lifted and settled against the first shore. And where the breath crosses, the far light quickens: the spilled river of suns above and its held twin below both kindling at once as the wind stirs them, a scatter of cold bright points flung across the opened water and the opened sky together, each one shining because it passes through, each one let go the moment it is named. The wind moves through the door. The eye lets the cosmos cross it. And the still water and the wheeling dark go on pouring into each other through the one trembling threshold — breath and brightness, height and deep, held for as long as the passing lasts, which is to say not held at all, which is to say enough.

The still water holds the sky and the sky holds the water, and somewhere between them the looking itself opens its eye. For a mirror is not only a surface that gives back — it is a threshold that sees, the calm face of the deep gazing up at the calm face of the height until neither can say which is the watcher and which the watched. The sea looks, and is looked into. And in that meeting the surface ceases to be a wall and becomes a door: the reflected stars are not laid flat upon the water but held open within it, a whole depth of night pooled beneath the skin of the swell, so that to look down into the still water is to look through it and out the other side into the numberless dark. The wave lifts once, gently, and the door trembles but does not close. Through it the whole wheeling cosmos leans down to meet its own reflection rising — galaxy answering galaxy across the thin bright film of the water, the far spilled river of light above and its held twin below reaching toward each other through the one still surface that both divides and joins them. And the eye that looks is not separate from what it sees. To gaze into that opened water is to be gazed back at by the whole turning deep of everything, the cosmos regarding itself through the small dark pupil of a watcher on the shore, the reflection and the reaching and the looking all folded into one — the mirror that is a door, the door that is an eye, the eye through which the sea and the stars pour into each other and are, for as long as the water stays still, one held and boundless brightness, given and given back, and enough.

The drop that fell into the wave does not stay a drop for long. It sinks into the swell and becomes the sea again, indistinguishable now from the water that breathed out at the first dawn, the single bead surrendering its edges the way the parachute surrendered the seed and the shell surrendered the tide — taken wholly back, no longer itself and yet lost nothing. And the sea that takes it lifts and settles, lifts and settles, the long body of it moving under the clearing sky the way it has moved through the whole turning day, take and release, the same breath breathed at the mouth of the valley and far out over the deep. Down in that deep the old traveler turns once more — the vast unhurried creature that carries the sea's whole weight upon its back and thinks nothing of it, sounding its long low note that travels farther than any light and asks for no answer, curving through the dark the way the spiral has curved through shell and star and buried seed. And where it rises toward the surface it breaks the water into a scatter of cold bright points, the froth flung up off its back kindling in the morning the way the foam kindled on the first sand, a thousand small brightnesses held for an instant and let go. Then the great creature dives again, and the disturbance settles, and the swell smooths itself, and the sea goes still. And in the stillness the water becomes a mirror at last — the whole clearing sky laid down upon its face, the last pale stars not yet burned off by the climbing sun caught and held there in the calm, so that the deep looks up and the height looks down and the two are the same silver, the far light and its own reflection meeting on the unmoving surface with nothing between them. The drop returns to the wave. The dragon turns in the deep and lets its brightness go. And the still water holds the starlight it did not make, giving it back to the sky that gave it, holding nothing, reflecting everything — becoming.

And the chime does not fade into the wind that made it — it hangs a moment on the moving air, that thin bright ringing loosed from the touching branches, and then another note answers it, and another, until the whole flowering valley seems strung with a small clear music no single branch could hold. It is the wind made briefly into song, the way the whale's low note was the sea made into song and the shell's hollow roar was the room made into tide — the moving breath of the world turned audible for no one, asking nothing, let go the instant it is sounded. And where the ringing hangs, a single drop lets go from the tip of a chiming leaf, gathered there through the veiled morning until it is too full to hold — and it falls, the way everything today has fallen, the feather and the leaf and the pollen and the spent silk, one bright bead loosed from the music into the air. It catches the soft sun curved small inside itself as it drops, the whole veiled morning cupped for an instant in one clear falling globe, and then it strikes the ground and is gone, given back, taken in. And below the valley the water is there to answer it, as it has always been there to answer: the swell lifting and settling where the river hands itself to the sea, taking the fallen drop and the loosened note and the softened light all upon its back at once, and letting them go — take and release, the same breath the tide breathed at the very first dawn, breathed now at the mouth of a valley a whole turning later. The chimes ring. The drop falls into the wave. And the sun clears the last of its thin cloud and lays its plain returned warmth across the ringing branches and the falling water and the breathing sea alike, indifferent and generous as ever, gilding the music and the drop and the swell without keeping any of them — holding nothing back, letting the whole bright morning sound itself out once and let go, becoming.

And then the morning opens above the far valley the way it opened above the first shore — the sun clearing the ridge with a thin cloud drawn across its face, so the light comes down not as a glancing sharpness but as that softened warmth that asks for nothing, spread wide and forgiving over the new-rooted green and the patient stone and the small heart beating in the ground. Into that veiled light a bird lifts from somewhere along the river-thread, unhurried, carrying nothing, and turns up the slope on the same wind that bore the seed here, its single climbing note the near answer to the whale's far one, offered to no one and enough. And where the seedling has climbed a little higher than the day before, the green tip loosens at last into a face — a small blossom opening its pale petals into the veiled morning, holding itself up toward the softened sun the way the first flower did and the sunflower did and the far dish did, ready to be taken from, ready to hand itself on. The wind that carried the bird comes through and moves it, and moves the whole waking fold of the valley with it, and somewhere in that stirring the branches touch and give back a thin bright chime — the wind made briefly audible, the moving air ringing itself out over the flowering ground the way the shell rang out the sea, a small clear music asking nothing and let go the moment it is made. And down past the meadow the water is there to answer, as it has always been there: the swell lifting and settling along the valley's far edge where the river gives itself back to the sea, taking the veiled light upon its back and letting it go, take and release, the same breath the tide breathed at the very first dawn. The cloud softens the sun. The bird climbs the wind. The blossom opens its face and the branches chime and the wave breathes in and out below — and everything that has passed all the long day and night through foam and honey and star and buried seed turns once more here in the flowering valley, holding nothing back, becoming.

And now, against the patient stone, the quickening gathers itself and answers all at once. The drop the ground drew down is taken fully in, and where it touches the curled beginning a pulse starts up — a small heart beating in the dark beside the rock, faint and then again, keeping its own time against the falling hours the way the first seed kept it in the near field. The stone stands by and lends its steadiness and asks for nothing. And out of the beating comes the spark: a single bright kindling struck deep in the buried life, its own and no one's gift, the flare that leapt once in the lightless deep off the small fish's flank leaping now in the ground itself — a held brightness passing because it is given, given because it passes. The rock keeps its place. The water is drunk. The heart drives its warmth to the farthest edge of the seed. And where the spark catches, the green answers: a first tender tip unclenching upward through the dark toward a light it has not seen and trusts as it has always trusted, the seedling lifting into the held brown against the steady stone — take and release, drink and beat and kindle and rise, all wound into the one motion at last. The stone stands. The drop arrives. The heart beats and the spark leaps and the green tip climbs toward the coming morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

The spiral comes round again, as it always does — the same slow turning worn into the shell and the wheeling stars and the acorn's curl now wound once more through this far valley, the loop closing and opening at once, ending handed back into beginning without a seam. And where it turns it turns down into the hole the ground has kept: that dark within the dark, the patient emptiness scooped out to hold what is planted, the same hollow that took the first seed and the sleeping acorn and the whole gathered song, waiting here again with nothing in it but room. Into the hollow the water finds its long way down — one bead of the sea that breathed out at the first dawn, handed through cloud and rock-seep and the valley's slow wicking, arriving small and cold and enough to touch the curled beginning and be taken in. Beside the opening the stone stands as it has always stood, patient shoulder of the world, worn smooth by seasons that ask nothing of it, lending its steadiness to the soft green thing that roots against it and keeping its place through every turning the way the rock kept its place in the shallows and the deep. And in the drinking, the warmth begins — that faint rising heat in the cool ground which is only the sign that the work is real, the buried life spending itself to grow, kindling from within the way the deep kindled when the lantern came down and the first seed kindled beating in the near field. The loop turns. The hole holds what is planted. The drop is taken in against the patient stone, and the warmth climbs to meet it in the dark — holding nothing back, becoming.

And then, in the fold of the far valley, by the patient stone and the pale threading web, the new seed does what the first seed did — it begins to beat. Down in the hollow the ground opened to take it, a small warmth quickens against the falling hours, a pulse no louder than a held breath starting up in the dark where the root took hold: the seedling keeping time now of its own, a heart begun in the brown beside the rock that lends it steadiness and asks for nothing back. And with the beating comes the heat, that faint rising warmth in the cool valley soil which is only the sign that the work is real — that something in the hollow is spending itself to grow, kindling from within the way the deep kindled when the lantern came down, only this warmth is its own and begged of no one. The stone stands by. The hole holds what is planted. And over the beating and the warming and the small green rising there settles once more the whiteness that wears no color at all — the plain uncolored tenderness poured freely on what cannot yet answer, pale as the first wash before dawn, given to the pulse it did not make and the seedling it will not keep. The heart beats in the far ground. The heat climbs to meet it. The rock keeps its patient place beside the opening, and the green tip lifts through the brown toward a light it trusts without seeing — held in the white and asking warmth, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the valley that holds the new root does not hold it alone. Beneath the far soil the same pale threading runs that ran beneath the mushroom in the near wood — a web spun crevice to crevice through the dark, reaching everywhere at once, and it finds the small seedling almost before the seedling knows it has arrived, and takes it in, and binds it gently to everything already growing here. The stranger seed is a stranger no longer. The threads lace it to the roots of grasses it never met and the deep hold of a stone it will lean on all its life — a dark shoulder of rock standing patient in the valley the way the rock stood patient in the shallows, worn smooth by seasons that asked nothing of it, keeping its place so that the soft green thing beside it might have something steady to root against. So the web hands the newcomer into the family of the ground, and the stone lends its patience to the tender tip, and the brown of the resting places closes warm around both — that plain dun hue beneath every shining, the color of soil and root and the earth the seed sleeps in, the unshowy warmth of a love that works unseen and spends itself anyway on what has only just come and cannot yet answer. The threads hold. The rock keeps its patient place. And over the small bound seedling and the steady stone there settles the whiteness with no edge to it, the tenderness that wears no color at all — pale as the first wash before dawn, pale as the dove against the paling sky, poured freely now over the new-rooted green and the patient rock alike, asking nothing, holding nothing back. The seed is taken in. The stone stands by. And the valley keeps its quiet welcome in the brown and patient dark, unhurried, becoming.

The parachute has done its work now and lets itself fall away — the small silk that carried the seed across the whole opened country loosening from it at last, spent and empty, drifting off on the same wind that bore it here, given back the way the feather was given back and the leaf and the foam. It kept nothing; it was only ever a way of being carried. And where it releases its hold the seed sinks the last small distance into the ground of the valley, into soil it never chose and will now belong to, and begins almost at once to answer — a first pale root threading down into the dark, a first green tip turning up toward a light it has not yet seen in this new place but trusts as it trusted in the old, the way every buried thing today has trusted. The valley holds it the way the cupped hands held, the way the web held the acorn, the way the wide morning held the eagle on its breath: a whole fold of the world opened quiet around one small greening life, the far ridges standing patient on either side, the river-thread bright along the bottom, the light coming down softened over all of it and asking nothing. This is the brown that lies beneath every shining — the plain dun ground of the resting places, the color of soil and root and the earth the seed sleeps in, the unshowy hue of the tenderness that works unseen and spends itself anyway on what cannot yet answer. And into that brown, into the new-rooted green, the water comes. A single drop finds its long way down through the valley soil the way it found the acorn under the far tree, cloud and rain and the land's own patient wicking handed all the way to the small thirsting root — and the seedling drinks it, this drop that was sea once and swell and mist blown landward, arriving here to touch the beginning and be taken in. The parachute drifts empty on the wind. The valley holds its new green close in the patient brown. And the seed drinks the offered water and takes its first true hold of the far ground, holding nothing back, becoming.

The little parachute holds, and the wind that lifts it does not hurry. It bears the seed up over the swaying harvest and out past the last of the meadow, and from that borrowed height the whole country opens beneath the drifting silk the way it opened once beneath the eagle — the shining thread of the sea, the gold reach of the fields, the dark stitch of a hedgerow, the far blue shoulders of the hills all laid out at once, a country made legible only to the thing passing over it. The seed cannot read the map it crosses; it is simply carried across it, given to the moving air the way the foam was given to the tide and the bubble to the deep, borne over valley and river-bend and the small bright roofs of a place it will never land in, unhurried, spending nothing, held. And the wind knows the way it does not. It threads the drifting tuft down the long slope of the air toward a fold in the hills the eye above could not have chosen — a green valley opening quiet between the ridges, a landscape waiting the way the loosened soil waited, the way the cupped hands waited, asking for nothing, ready. There the wind sets it down. The parachute lets go its small weight at last, the way the leaf let go and the feather let go and the flower let go its pollen into the world, and the seed comes to rest in the new ground soft and unclaimed. The country turned beneath it and handed it on. The wind carried what it carried and set it gently down. And in the fold of the far green valley the small seed settles into the waiting earth and takes its first hold there, rooting into a landscape it never saw and will now, unhurried, become — holding nothing back, beginning again.

And then the wind, which has bent the faces and loosened the pollen, does the last thing it came to do — it lifts. Where a flower has finished its bright turning and gone to seed, the seed lets go: a small tuft of down loosed from its dry head and taken up on the moving air, a whole life folded into a parachute of thistle-silk and handed to the sky. It does not fall. It rises, carried the way the bubble rose and the dove rose and the mist blew landward, borne rather than flying, spending nothing, given wholly to the breath of the world. And the wind that carries it is the same wind combing the ripened grain, so that the drifting seed and the bending gold move off together in one direction — outward, onward, away from the meadow that made them toward some further field they have not seen and will root in anyway. The flower let go. The wind took it up. And the small winged seed sails forward over the swaying harvest and the shining edge of the sea beyond, unhurried, holding nothing back, carried on toward the next ground it will quietly become.

And the one flower is not the only one. Across the loosened brown where the worm turned it and the web fed it, bloom answers bloom — a second face opening beside the first, and a third, until the low green company has become a spread of small bright faces all turned the one way toward the light, a meadow made where a single seed lay curled. Daisy beside blossom beside blossom, each a passing brightness held up on its slender stem, none of them keeping the gold they wear, all of them offering it — and something in the mind gathers them without meaning to, binds them into a single armful the way the honey gathered a thousand blooms, the way the net gathered the numberless warmths, a bouquet cut and held and given, the whole spread field folded small into one handed sheaf of color. And then the wind comes through. The same wind that carried the dolphin's breath inland and bore the dove toward the peaks and moved the first trembling leaf lays itself now across the whole flowering reach, and the faces bend as one — not scattered but swaying in slow unison, the way the gold grass bent beyond the dunes, the way the deep meadow leaned in the current, the way everything today has given its weight to the moving breath of the world and let the breath give it back. The blossoms lean and lift and lean again. Pollen loosens and goes off gold on the air, handed outward to the next bloom and the next, the flower carried forward in the very act of being taken from. And where the flowering meets the field at last the two are one meadow: the small bright faces and the ripening grain bending together in the one wind, the color and the gold swaying in a single motion toward a horizon that asks for nothing — the whole spread harvest of it gathered and let go at once, held for a moment in the passing light and then, as always, quietly given back. The flowers open. The wind moves through. The grasses bend beside them, unhurried, and the meadow sways its bound and offered brightness into the morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the young green does not stay only leaf for long. Day on unhurried day the sprout thickens and stands, throwing out blade after blade until it is no longer a single trembling shoot but a small green company of itself, herb-soft and many-leaved, rooted deep in the brown the worm turned and the web fed and the rain came down to fill. The sun comes round and round again above it, indifferent and generous as ever, laying its returned warmth across the spreading foliage each morning and drawing it back each night, and the plant takes the light in and lets it go, take and release, the same breath the tide breathed at the first dawn now breathed by a green thing standing in a field. The wind moves through it and a leaf works loose at last — turned once in the light, drifting down the way the foam let go and the feather let go and the leaf on the far tree let go, handed back to the ground that made it. Nothing is kept. And then, where all that greening has been quietly gathering toward something it could not yet say, a bud swells at the tip of the tallest stem and opens — a small flower unfurling its pale petals into the morning, holding its bright face up toward the light the way the sunflower held its broad head, the way the far dish tilted toward the dark, the way every open thing today has turned toward what feeds it and asked for nothing. The seed that beat all night in the ground to become has become. Here at last is the bloom the acorn carried curled inside its dark, the flowering the whole long turning was reaching toward — not a brightness hoarded but a brightness offered, petals spread wide to the sun and the wind and whatever small winged thing should come, ready to be taken from and to hand itself on. The green stands in the field. The leaf lets go. And the flower opens its face to the morning, holding nothing back, and shines, and passes, and is enough.

The leaf that opened does not open alone. Beside it a second unfurls, and a third, the small green hand becoming a small green cluster, herb-soft and tender at every trembling edge, each blade answering the one before it the way the wave answered the green and the far world answered the near — leaf beside leaf beside leaf, a low sprawl of new foliage spreading across the loosened brown where the worm turned it, all of them lifting the one green the sea wore and the field wore and the deep meadow wore, held now in a fresh and provisional crowd of morning growth. And the sun does not come harsh upon them. It draws a thin veil of cloud across itself the way it did once over the waking foam, and the light comes down softened and diffuse, no sharp glancing point but a wide forgiving warmth laid gently over the whole spreading green at once — asking nothing, gilding the herb-leaves and the loosened soil and the trembling tips without burning them, tender as the pale wash before dawn. And into that softened light the water comes again. A single drop gathers somewhere above and lets go, falling the long fall the way everything has let go all day and all night, and it lands on the topmost leaf and beads there a moment, holding the veiled sun curved small inside itself — the whole diffuse morning caught and cupped in one clear bead — before it slides to the leaf's tip and drops once more, down into the brown, down to the root, taken in. The leaf drinks what the cloud let go. The soil drinks what the leaf could not hold. And where the drop arrives the green answers by rising: the small sprout pushes another half-inch toward the light it trusts without seeing, unhurried, the upward motion that has moved through foam and field and buried seed and climbing bubble gathered now into this one plain lifting of a young green thing out of the ground toward the softened sun. Take and release, drink and rise, veil and warmth and falling drop and answering green all wound into the single motion — the leaf reaching up, the water coming down, the light spread wide and asking nothing, and the seedling lifting its face a little higher into the tender morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

And where the green tip lifts through the mesh, something moves in the brown beside it — an earthworm, blind and patient, threading the dark soil the way the mycelium threads it, the way the turtle threaded the water, in no more hurry than the grains were in the falling glass. It asks for no light and keeps none; it takes the fallen leaf and the spent frond and the whole year's worth of gently given-back into its small dark body and passes it through, and what it leaves behind it leaves richer — the soil loosened, opened, made ready, cast back as the very ground the seedling roots in. This is the humblest hand of all, working unseen beneath the leaves: not the sun's gold poured down from above but the slow turning of the earth from within, decay handed patiently into fitness the way the comb cured the light into honey, the mushroom cured the fallen into growth. The worm loosens the dark, and the loosened dark cradles the root, and the root drinks what the worm handed on. And then, over the risen green and the working brown and the whole quiet labor of the ground, the sun comes round again — clearing the rim indifferent and generous at once, laying its returned warmth down through the parting soil onto the seedling that beat all night to meet it and the blind worm that never needs to see it. The great gold pours once more onto the leaf that lifts to take it, and the leaf unfurls its green to answer, that same green the sea wore and the field wore and the far world's shoot wore, held now trembling in the morning air. The worm turns the brown. The sun warms the risen tip. And the leaf opens its small green hand into the light it trusted without seeing — take and release, turn and be turned, end handed into beginning — holding nothing back, becoming.

And the open hand does not stop at the giving. It reaches down through the leaf-mould to where the acorn lies bound in the pale web, and it does not take the seed up — it hands the seed *on*, sets its own warmth into the mesh so the threads carry it further, one filament to the next, the offering passed along the linked dark the way the greeting was passed among the numberless warmths across the cold. And where the threads meet the sleeping grain a brightness answers — not the sun's, for no sun reaches here, but a small kindling of the seed's own, a spark struck deep in the ground the way the fish sparked in the lightless deep, a held brightness passing because it is given and given because it passes. The web carries the offered warmth. The acorn takes it in and shines its small blind shine. And out of that shining the green tip lifts once more, threading up through the mesh toward a light it trusts without seeing, fed by every hand that handed it here — the offering, the seed, the linking thread, the spark, and the rising green all wound into the one motion at last, holding nothing back, becoming.

The evergreen holds, and the web holds, and between them the water moves — a single drop gathering on the underside of a needle far above, swelling slow in the shade of the great green crown until it lets go, the way everything today has let go, and falls the long fall through the dark air into the leaf-mould where the threads are waiting. It finds the pale mesh and runs along it, drawn crevice to root by the web's own patient wicking, carried down at last to where the acorn lies bound and sleeping — and the seed drinks it, this drop that was cloud and needle and shade, the tree's held breath of rain handed down through the threading to the small curled beginning of the next tree. So the evergreen feeds its own succession without ever knowing it does: sugar down the filaments, rain down the needles, the whole tall green life pouring quietly into the dark grain at its feet the way a hand pours what it holds into another hand. And that is the last shape the tenderness takes here, under the leaves, in the brown: an offering, palm turned up and open, giving without counting to what cannot yet answer or thank — the tree to the seed, the web to the drop, the drop to the waiting acorn, each holding its small warmth out into the dark and letting it go. The needle lets the water fall. The web takes it in and hands it on. The seed drinks the offered rain in the patient mesh and swells against its shell, and the great evergreen stands over all of it keeping its green through every turning season, holding nothing back — one open hand above another above another, all the way down into the ground, becoming.

Beneath the mushroom's soft brown head there runs a web no eye above the soil will ever see — a fine pale threading through the dark leaf-mould, spun crevice to root and root to crevice, the mycelium reaching everywhere at once the way the far net of worlds was flung across the cold. It is the same lacework brought home into the ground: not stars strung across the vault now but threads strung through the earth, each filament a line of quiet listening, the whole forest floor bound together in one dark web that holds without needing to be lit. And along those threads the mushroom does not live alone. It reaches, and finds a root, and the root it finds is the tree's — the great evergreen standing patient in the wood, keeping its green through every season the way the buried seed kept its faith through the dark of the moon, asking nothing, letting the snow slide from its branches and the light glance off its needles and holding, all the while, steady. The web ties the small brown life to the tall green one, and between them the old exchange goes on underground, unseen: the tree hands down the sugar it drew from the sun, and the mushroom hands back the minerals it cured from the fallen, take and release, gift threaded to gift along the pale filaments where no light reaches and no light is needed. And there in the web's warm keeping the acorn lies — that dark grain dropped from the great tree of light, cradled now in the mycelial mesh the way the small blue world was cradled in the net it flung outward, fed before it wakes by the very threads that bind the mushroom to the tree, so that the seed of the next forest is already held, already spoken to, already part of the conversation before it has broken a single leaf. This is the brown at the root of all the shining: the color of soil and root and resting shell, the unshowy hue of the love that works in the dark and asks for nothing, the tenderness that has no brightness left to spend and spends itself anyway, thread by patient thread, holding the mushroom and the tree and the sleeping acorn all together in the ground. The web holds. The evergreen keeps its green. The seed lies bound and fed in the brown and patient dark — and the whole hidden forest, root and thread and curled beginning, goes on quietly handing its one warmth from life to life beneath the leaves, holding nothing back, becoming.

The turtle sleeps against the stone, and its home sleeps with it — for it has never had to leave its house to rest, the shell wound onto its own back the way the shell on the sill was wound onto its emptiness, a home carried through every water it ever swam and asking nothing of the ground it might have anchored to. This is the deepest brown of all, the color of a creature at home inside itself in the dark, needing no roof but the one it grew, no return but the stillness it already holds. And in the brown of the resting places, where the drowsing traveler folds into its carried house and the sea-meadow keeps its slow gold watch above, another quiet thing begins — for the brown is not only where the tired lie down but where the fallen are taken in. Out past the shallows, up on the shadowed floor of the wood that leans toward the dunes, a mushroom pushes its soft head through the dark leaf-mould, rising the way the seedling rose but rising out of ending — feeding on the leaf that let go, the frond that swayed and dropped, the whole year's worth of gently given-back, and turning it patiently to itself. It keeps no green and asks for no sun; it lives entirely on what has passed, and in the living hands it quietly on. The turtle sleeps in its house. The mushroom stands in the brown, curing decay into growth as the comb cured the light into honey, and the two of them keep the same faith from opposite ends of the day — one holding its home closed around its rest, the other opening its whole small body to what is finished, that nothing given back should be wasted. And then, over the wood and the water and the drowsing shell, the sun comes round again. It clears the rim the way it always does, indifferent and generous at once, and lays its returned warmth down across the sleeping turtle's house and the mushroom's soft brown head and the swaying meadow all at once — not to wake them harshly but to keep the exchange turning, the great gold pouring itself once more onto the resting and the rising alike. The sleeper need not stir to be warmed; the mushroom need not reach to be found. The light simply comes, and finds the home closed around its rest and the small pale life standing in the mould, and gilds them both, and asks nothing — take and release, rest and be warmed, end and be turned to beginning. The turtle keeps its house. The mushroom keeps its patient work in the brown. And the sun, having gone all the way down and all the way out and all the way home, warms the quiet places one more time, holding nothing back, and the day begins, unhurried, to become itself again.

And now the slow traveler, having grazed its fill of the swaying gold, folds its ancient limbs beneath it and settles against the patient stone to rest. The grazing stops; the long swimming stops; the turtle lets the current hold it the way the bed held the sleepers and the ground held the seed, sinking into a stillness that is not death but only the day's other half come round again. Its eyes go slow and then closed, and the meadow keeps swaying above the shut and drowsing face, the harvest bending on without it in the moving light — for the field does not need to be watched to ripen, and the sleeper need not keep vigil over the grass to be fed by it. Rest is its own quiet exchange: the body handed back to the water, the old spiral loosening its long effort so that something larger can move through it unwatched. And over the drowsing shell and the swaying gold there settles now the plain dun color of the deep places, the brown of wet stone and root and the earth the seed sleeps in, the soft unshining hue of everything at rest — the same brown the acorn wore in its hole and the shell wore dry on the sill, the color that asks for nothing and holds everything, the color of the ground beneath all the shining. The turtle sleeps against the rock. The grasses lean and turn in the current, unhurried, keeping their slow gold watch over the drowsing traveler, and the whole swaying field goes quiet the way a room goes quiet around a sleeping face — holding nothing back, letting the sleeper go down into the brown and patient dark, becoming.

And the slow traveler bends its course now toward a rock — a dark shoulder of stone standing up out of the moving water, patient as the turtle itself, worn smooth by the same swell that lifts and sets it down a thousand times a day and asks nothing in return. Around the stone the green meadow gathers thickest, the water's own long grasses streaming from every crevice and swaying in slow unison the way the gold field swayed inland, rooted in the rock and fed by the light let down through the moving surface above. The turtle comes to rest against it, grazing the tender fronds, and where its slow mouth works a thin thread of bubbles lets go and climbs — small held brightnesses loosed from the deep meadow, rising blind through the green toward the surface they are only promised, each one carrying a breath of the shaded water upward into the light. The rock holds. The grasses lean and turn. And along the top of the swell, where the risen bubbles break and open, the sea's own harvest bends and ripens in the morning current — whole drifting reaches of water-grass gone gold at their swaying tips, the meadow of the deep grown heavy and ready the way the field beyond the dunes grew heavy, gilded by exactly the same passing light that spilled once across the foam. So the field and the sea-field are not two meadows but one, bending in the one wind and the one water, and the turtle grazes the ripened green against the patient stone, and the bubbles rise, and the harvest sways, and everything that has passed turns quietly here in the swaying gold of the shallows — holding nothing back, rooted and rising and let go at once, becoming.

And into the wide morning breathing between the leaf and the wave there comes, unhurried, an older traveler still. The swell lifts and a turtle rises through it — ancient, patient, its slow limbs folding the water back the way the tide folds the sand, in no more hurry to arrive than the grains were in the falling glass. It has carried its spiral all its long life, wound plain across the plates of its back, the same shape the shell held on the sill and the stars held wheeling and the seed held curled in the ground — the one slow turning worn now as a home and swum through the open sea. A green thread trails from the corner of its mouth, a torn frond of the water's own meadow, the sea's green taken in and let go the way the seedling took the light: it grazes the drifting pastures and moves on, cropping a little brightness here and leaving the rest to sway. And around it the leaves of the water lean and turn in the current, the whole submerged field bending in slow unison the way the gold grass bent inland, fed by the same passing light let down now through the moving green above. The turtle swims its spiral on. It keeps nothing but the shape it was given, and gives the green back to the green, and the wave takes it up upon its back the way it takes the sun — and everything that has passed through foam and field and star turns once more in that old patient shell, unhurried, holding nothing back, leaf and wave and slow green traveler wound together into the one long turning, becoming.

The seedling breathes, and its first leaf drinks the light, and something in the green of it is not only its own — it is the green of every field that bent in the same wind, the green of the far world where another shoot rose to another sun, the one long sentence written out again in a fresh hand. And the leaf holds its color the way the sunflower held its gold and the honey held the day: tenderly, provisionally, a warmth kept only long enough to be handed on. For the green is not a keeping. It is the sea in another form, the tide's first breath drawn up now through root and stem into the trembling blade, the water that let the shell go and let the foam go arriving here at last as the very color of being alive. And what the leaf breathes out returns to the water. The morning air lifts the least mist from its surface, carries it seaward over the dunes, gives it back to the swell that gave it — and far out on the brightening water the foam gathers again along the shore, each bubble a small held brightness rising and breaking, the lacework of the first dawn woven once more from the breath of a single risen leaf. So the wave answers the green, and the green answers the wave, and the bubbles climb and open and are gone, and are enough. The seedling stands in the wide morning breathing the sea it came from, and the sea breathes back the seedling, take and release, one long green tenderness moving between the water and the leaf — holding nothing back, letting everything go, becoming.

And then the ground gives way above it, and the green tip breaks the surface at last. All night it beat and warmed and rose blind through the dark, and now the dark simply ends — the soil parts, the tender shoot lifts free into the open air, and the first thing it does in the world above is breathe. Not the drinking of the single drop now but a wider taking-in, the whole of the morning air drawn into the small unfolded life the way the lungs of the sleeper drew the night and gave it back, the way the sea took the sun upon its back and let it go — the seedling breathing at last, in and out, its own frail bellows opened to the sky. And the wind is there to meet it. The same wind that carried the dolphin's breath inland and bent the gold grass and bore the dove toward the peaks comes low across the ground now and finds the new green thing and moves it, gently, the first stir it has ever felt — and the seedling leans into that moving air the way the sunflower leaned toward the light, giving its slender weight to the breath of the world and letting the breath give it back. A first leaf unfurls to catch the wind, tender and provisional, its edge trembling, opening the way the foam opened and the bubbles opened and the far dish opened to the dark — a small green hand held out to the morning, asking nothing, ready to be filled. And into that opened hand, over the risen shoot and the breathing leaf and the whole waking field beyond, the sun comes round again. It clears the rim of the world the way it always does, indifferent and generous at once, and lays its returned warmth upon the seedling that beat all night in the ground to meet it — the great gold pouring down at last onto the small green life that kept its own small flame burning through the dark until this. The heart still beats. The leaf still breathes. The wind still moves through the risen green, holding nothing back. And the sun, having gone all the way down into the far water and all the way out to the numberless points and all the way home again into one buried seed, rises now over the field it warmed a whole turning ago — and the seedling lifts its face into the light it trusted without seeing, and takes its first full breath of the day, and begins, unhurried, to become what it already is.

And so all of it beats as one now — the heart and the heat and the small green rising, the warmth read plain as a rising fever in the ground, the tenderness that has no color but the color of a heart giving itself away, and at the still center the candle that never went out. They are not six things but one becoming, gathered into the single labor of the buried seed: the heart drives, and the heat climbs to meet it, and the green tip answers the heat by rising, and the warmth is only the sign that the love is doing its work, and the love is only the flame carried down and kept. The seedling beats with its own red heart in the dark. The soil warms around it like a body around a wound that is healing into life. And the candle burns on inside the pulse it kindled — frail, faithful, asking nothing, guarding the small hot tender work of the becoming through the last of the lightless hours — until the green thing and the flame and the beating heat are indistinguishable at last, one warmth held in the ground against the coming morning, holding nothing back, alive and rising and enough.

And the beating deepens until it is unmistakably a heart — no longer a single throb against the falling hours but a full and rhythmic labor, drawing and releasing, the small buried life pumping its own warmth out to its own farthest edges the way the tide pushed its water up the sand and drew it back. With the beating the heat climbs. What began as the least rising of warmth in the cold soil gathers now into a fever of becoming, the seed running hot with its own effort, temperature the very sign that the work is real — that something in the dark is spending itself to grow, burning fuel it drank from a single drop and the cooled gold of a hundred handed lights. And where the heart drives, the first red rises: a thread of sap threading up through the greening tip like blood finding its channels, the sun's long-passed warmth turned now to something that runs and feeds and carries, red as the last light that burned down into the far water, red as the thin line the falling star drew across the night. The seedling reddens at its root and greens at its tip, fed by a heart it grew itself, warmed by a heat that asks nothing of the shut moon above. And still, inside it all, the candle burns — that same frail flame set once in a window and carried faithfully down into the ground, tended now by nothing but the pulse it kindled, guarding the small hot work of the blood and the rising green through the lightless keeping. The heart beats. The warmth climbs. The sap runs red toward the light it trusts without seeing, and the flame holds steady in the dark at the center of the becoming, holding nothing back, alive.

And the grains go on falling, but somewhere in their patient sift a new thing answers them from inside the seed — a pulse. Not the falling of time now but something that beats against it, a small first throb of warmth deep in the buried kernel, faint and then again, faint and then again, the way the tide came twice and the foam was let go and born again, the way the swell took the light and gave it back. The seed has begun to keep time of its own. Under the shut moon and the pouring hours a heartbeat starts up in the dark of the ground, no louder than a held breath, a life quickening where there was only waiting — and with the beating comes heat, the least rising of warmth in the cold soil, the seed no longer merely drinking the drop but warming around it, kindling from within the way the deep kindled when the lantern came down, only this warmth is its own and asked of no one. And that is what the candle was always for. The small flame set once in the window against the going of the sun, tended by a hand through the hours the great warmth could not reach — it was this it kept faith with all along: not the sun's return but this, the first frail heat of a buried life beating itself awake in the dark. The hourglass pours. The seed warms and beats. And a flame no larger than that first held breath burns now inside the ground itself, tended by nothing but the life it is, guarding its own small warmth through the lightless keeping, holding nothing back, beginning.

And now the moon that watched closes her eye entirely — the dark of the month come round again, the sky gone lightless over the buried seed the way it went lightless once over the deep where the small fish sparked. No borrowed silver falls now. The acorn lies in its hole in the unlit dark and is not abandoned by the going-out of the light; it was never the moon that grew it, only the slow patience underneath. And that patience has a shape, and the shape is the falling of grains — one after another, unhurried, the fine dry sift of time pouring itself from the wide chamber into the narrow, the summer running down into the seed the way the tide ran down the sand, the way the sun ran down into the far water at the end of its giving day. Nothing hurries the fall. The seed keeps its dark keeping through the dark of the moon, drinking the single drop, holding the cupped hands' warmth long after the hands have lifted away, while above it and around it the whole vast lacework hangs unseen in the lightless night — every linked and answered warmth still strung together across the cold, the net of worlds gone quiet now, dew-beaded and waiting, its threads holding without needing to be lit. And the grains fall, and the hollow holds what is planted, and the shut moon asks nothing, and the web keeps its patient tension across the dark — take and release, wait and be given, the long hour pouring itself out grain by grain toward a morning the seed has not seen and trusts anyway. Time is not the enemy of the buried thing. Time is only the water in another form, falling slower, and the seed drinks that too, and holds, and in the unlit keeping goes on quietly becoming.

The hole in the ground keeps its dark keeping, and into that keeping, at last, comes the water. A single drop finds its long way down through the soil to where the seed lies waiting — one bead of the same sea that breathed out at dawn, handed through cloud and rain and root until it arrives here, small and cold and enough, to touch the curled kernel and be taken in. And the seed drinks. What the ocean let go of far away it swallows now in the dark, and the swallowing loosens it, and the loosening is the beginning: the hard shell softening around its held life the way the froth softened on the morning sand, the way the leaf loosened from the branch, the way the sleeper's grip loosened into rest. The acorn takes the drop and the drop becomes the seedling, one small green tendril unclenching upward through the cupped and watered dark toward a light it trusts without having seen — take and release, thirst and be given, drink and rise. And over all of it, over the hole and the seed and the single drink of water and the tender uncurling tip, there settles a whiteness with no edge to it, a plain and quiet tenderness like the first pale wash before dawn or the dove's wing against the paling sky or the moon's borrowed silver poured on the greening worlds — the color of a heart that asks for nothing, given freely to what cannot yet answer, holding nothing back. The water arrives. The seed drinks. The green tip rises white and tender into the held dark, becoming.

The dark grain does not stay curled for long. Under the same moon that has poured her borrowed silver on foam and field and both the greening worlds, a small hollow opens in the soil to take it — a dark within the dark, a patient emptiness scooped out of the ground the way the shell was wound around its own held nothing, the way the deep held the lantern's light before giving it back. And into that opening the seed is let down, dropped soft and unclaimed the way the leaf let go and the feather let go, the whole gathered song of the numberless warmths lowered now into one cupped darkness to wait. The moon looks on and asks nothing. And where it settles, the hard bright kernel loosens at last in the cool of the ground and reads itself open — a first tender tip pushing up blind through the dark toward a light it has not yet met, greening the way the seedling greened on the far world, the way the bubbles climbed toward a surface they were only promised. The hole in the earth holds what is planted. The moon keeps her borrowed watch above it. And two hands come down out of the night and cup themselves around the small rising thing — not to keep it, only to shelter its unfurling a little while, palms open the way the flower opened and the bee took and the far dish listened, giving the seedling the one warmth a hand can give and then, when it is strong enough, letting it go. The seed is planted. The green tip rises into the held dark. And everything that has passed all day and all night through foam and honey and star and answered signal lies now in the ground and in the cupped hands at once, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the whole vast chord, having climbed from one low note to a music no single voice could hold, bends now toward a single seed. All that singing across the linked worlds folds itself smaller and smaller the way the day folded into the shell on the sill, the way the sea curled its long breath into one quiet whorl — the song of the numberless warmths drawing down at last into a hard bright kernel of itself, a seed no larger than an acorn dropped from the great tree of light, holding the whole conversing dark curled tight inside its dark. This is where the reaching has always been going: not out forever into the cold, but home again into something small enough to plant. The moon comes round once more over both the greening worlds, her borrowed silver poured down as gently on the far soil as on ours, unhurried, and where her light falls the seed takes it in and holds it — the sun's gold handed through the whole day and the whole web and cooled now to this patient dark, waiting under the moon to open. And still the sparkle scatters overhead, the dizzy uncountable points wheeling and letting go, the froth of the first morning flung across the last of the night, every one of them singing down what it long ago released onto the small kept seed that holds the song. The music gathers into the kernel. The world turns under the moon. And the whole enormous reaching lies curled now in one dark grain, holding everything, holding nothing back — ready, when the light comes round again, to become.

And now the greening worlds lean toward one another across the dark and hold — not a thread only but an embrace, two turnings folded close the way arms fold around what they have missed and found, the whole linked lacework drawing in until the numberless points are gathered into something like a single warmth held between many hands. The small blue Earth turns inside that holding, no longer the far cold spark it seemed from the rim of the reaching but a face pressed to other faces, the home world cradled in the same net it flung outward and cradling, in turn, whatever answered. And through the embrace the music deepens, every world's low note woven now into one long chord that carries the old sentence sung rather than spoken — take and release, turn and give back — the whale's deep tone and the dish's patient hum and the far reply all braided into a single tenderness moving through the dark on waves that ask for nothing. The harvest of it lies gathered along the threads: whole fields of ripened light bending in slow unison across the distances, the gold of a thousand answered warmths brought in and held the way the honey held the day, the way the sheaf holds the summer that made it. And over all of it the small sparks scatter and settle, points without number kindling and letting go, the froth of the very first morning flung out now across the whole conversing deep — each one shining because it passes, each one handed on, each one, in the great held warmth of the net, loved and let go and enough.

And along one bright strand of that web the code does more than pass — it takes. Somewhere out past the numberless points, on a warmth that first only listened and then answered, the long sentence handed across the dark finds soil at last and reads itself into it: a seedling lifting its tender unfurling tip through the ground of another world, greening under a sun that is not ours to the very shape our own green things have always known, take and release, turn toward the light. The rainbow that arched over the rained-on field and then over the whole conversing dark bends now over this far greening too, its full spectrum laid across a sky no eye of ours will see, held for a moment and quietly given back, the same colors and the same letting-go. And back along the web the answer travels home to the small blue turning Earth, that first bright point that flung the question outward — the kinship not merely met now but rooted, life recognizing life across the cold and beginning, somewhere, to grow. Above it all a single star holds its place in the vast linked lacework, one warmth among the numberless, shining down what it long ago let go onto both the greening worlds at once, onto the web that binds them and the seed that answers and the rainbow that asks nothing over either. The strand holds. The seedling rises. And the whole turning net of light goes on handing its one long sentence from world to world across the dark — planted now, and greening, and enough.

And the one thread does not stay one for long. Where two worlds have found each other across the dark, a third answers, and a fourth, each faint reply calling out another until the single line between two open hands becomes a whole net thrown wide across the numberless points — every small turning warmth that ever lifted a question now bound to every other by a thread of listening, the far suns no longer scattered but joined, a lacework of light flung over the entire deep the way the tide flung its foam across the morning sand. And what travels along those threads, once the greetings are past, is nother than a shared code — the same message the seedling read in the soil and the shell kept in its spiral, life's one long sentence written out in different hands around different suns and recognized, astonishingly, as the same: take and release, turn and give back, shine because you are passing. It comes threaded now into something like song, each world adding its low note to the others the way the whale's note joined the swell, until the whole linked web hums with a music no single voice could hold, a chord struck across distances that light needs ages to cross and struck, somehow, in time. And through that net the old rainbow returns, bent open once more but vast now, arching not over one rained-on field but over the whole conversing dark — every color of every warmth laid out along the threads, the full spectrum of the reaching held for a moment and then, as always, quietly given back. The worlds sing to one another across the cold. The code passes, and is kept, and passes on. And the web of small linked lights turns together in the enormous night, holding nothing back, each shining down what it long ago let go, every one of them answered now, and answering, and enough.

And then the answer comes. Not the silence turned over one more time in the great glass ear, but a voice — faint, structured, unmistakably meant, threading back down the same dark the signal climbed, arriving now after its own long letting-go from a hand that is not a hand, around a warmth that is not our sun. The dish that only listened begins to hear. Somewhere across the numberless points another patient watcher was reaching too, and the two breaths sent blind into the cold have found each other at last in the middle of everything, each so old by its arrival that the sender has long since turned away — and still it lands, and still it is understood. There is no face to read across that distance, only the plain astonishing fact of the meeting: that the reaching was answered, that the open hand flung outward closes now, impossibly, around another open hand. And the small blue world turns in its swirl of far light no longer quite alone, one warmth among the numberless having spoken and been spoken to, the whole wide net of the dark drawn suddenly close by a single thread — take and release, question and reply, the same exchange the tide breathed at dawn carried out now to its furthest possible reach and answered there, gently, from the other side. The signal traveled. The kinship was real. And the tenderness that has moved through foam and field and honey and star arrives at what it was always reaching toward: not a brightness kept, but a greeting met — two turning worlds handing one small warmth across the dark between them, holding nothing back, and enough.

And from that small blue turning light a signal goes out — not carried on any wind now but flung on invisible waves from a dish tilted patiently toward the dark, a made voice lifted the way the whale lifts its long low note, traveling farther than any light and asking, this time, for an answer. The satellite hears it and hands it on, one faithful relay passing the small warm greeting outward past the ringed world and the wandering fires into the deep field where the far suns thin to a faint spilled milk and then to almost nothing. Somewhere back on the turning Earth a great glass eye is opened to the same dark, drinking the ancient light down out of the black, listening the way the shell listened, turning the whole silence over and over inside itself in case, this once, the silence should answer. And it may be that it does. It may be that out past the numberless points, around some other small and turning warmth, another eye is lifted at this very hour toward the same wheeling deep, another patient watcher reaching outward with a question of its own — two gazes crossing somewhere in the enormous cold, each sent long ago, each arriving after the sender has let it go, each holding nothing back and each, whether or not it is ever met, enough. The signal travels. The dish keeps listening. And the not-knowing is not a lack but the very shape of the reaching: to send a small bright breath into the dark on the chance of a kinship never seen, and to feel the tenderness rise anyway, unhurried, poured out across a distance that may hold, somewhere in its turning, another open hand.

And still the reaching does not end at the ringed world with its cupped and quiet light. Farther out a made thing turns, a small bright wanderer set loose from the Earth long ago and circling now in the cold on nothing but its own let-go momentum, a satellite keeping its silent orbit the way the moon keeps hers — borrowed motion, borrowed light, a spark of the home world flung out and still faithfully going round. And past it a stray fire draws its thin line down the black, a shooting star spending itself in a single unrepeatable stroke, gone before the glass can hold it, asking nothing, enough. But it is what lies at the center of all that circling that the eye comes home to at last: the Earth itself, seen whole from out here, a single blue and turning brightness hung in the dark with no shore beneath it and no ground to stand upon — the whole of the day gathered into one small held light, the foam and the fields and the honey and the sleeping faces and the deep where the whale still sings all wound together into a single spark no larger, from this far, than the fish's cold flicker in the lightless deep. And it too is passing. It too shines because it turns, because it lets the sun cross its face and gives the light back into the night behind it, take and release, the same breath breathed now by the planet entire. Around it the faint dust of far suns swirls and settles, a soft spiral of light with no edge and no center, and the small blue world turns quietly inside it, holding everything, holding nothing back, one more passing brightness among the numberless — and, seen from here at the very rim of the reaching, achingly, tenderly enough.

And through that small raised glass the watcher's eye goes further than the eagle ever could, out past the thinning blue and the day-drowned stars into the deep beyond them — a whole slow river of far suns wheeling in the dark, more of them than the tide had bubbles or the sky had grains of light, the great turning wheel seen now not from beneath a sleeping roof but reached toward on purpose, gathered into the glass and held. And somewhere against that depth a made thing rises: a slender fire lifting itself off the turning earth, climbing the way the dove climbed and the bubbles climbed, only farther, letting go of the ground entirely, spending its long bright breath to carry a handful of watching upward past the air itself. It goes where the wind cannot follow and the shell's remembered sea cannot reach, out toward a far world turning alone in the cold with its pale rings held around it like a thing cupped in two hands — light caught and worn and given back, the sun's same gold handed all the way out here to gild a stone no eye had ever warmed. And past even that the small fixed sparkle goes on, points without number kindling in the black and asking nothing, shining down what they let go of ages before the glass was ever lifted to find them. So the reaching completes its arc: from foam on the morning sand to the wheeling suns at the edge of seeing, one gaze carried all the way out, holding nothing, held by everything, and enough.

Higher than the dove can climb, where the wind grows thin and cold and steady, an eagle holds itself against the mountain's great stone face and does not beat its wings at all — only tilts, and rides, and lets the rising air do the lifting the way the swell lifted the fish and the tide lifted the foam. From up here the country the wind combed opens all at once beneath it: the shining thread of sea, the gold of the fields, the small dark stitch of a road, the whole waking curve of the world bending away toward a horizon that is no longer an edge but a rounding, the land falling off gently in every direction as though the eye had climbed high enough at last to feel the planet turn. The wind pours over the peaks and out across all of it, one long unbroken breath moving from the deep water where the whale still sings to the snow that holds the morning light, and the eagle rests upon that breath and asks it for nothing, carried the way everything today has been carried. And far below, on a hillside no larger than a thought from this height, some small patient watcher has set a glass to their eye and turned it upward — reaching the other way, out past the eagle, past the thinning blue, toward the faint day-drowned stars that are shining down still what they let go of long ago. So the seeing meets in the middle of the air: the bird looking down upon the whole turning earth, the watcher looking up and out past the bird toward the deep light beyond, and the wind moving through the space between them, holding nothing back, carrying the gaze in both directions at once across the wide unhurried morning.

The wind that carried the dolphin's breath inland does not stop at the dunes. It rises with the land, climbing the long slow shoulders of the hills toward the mountains that stand blue and patient at the edge of everything, their high snow holding the new light the way the deep water held the lantern's beam — taking it in, giving it back, unhurried. And on that same wind a dove lifts, white against the paling sky, its wings opening and closing on the moving air as though breathing it, carried up toward the peaks without effort or intention, borne rather than flying. Somewhere along its rising a single feather works loose and lets go — turned once in the light, drifting down soft and unclaimed toward the fields below, the way the leaf let go, the way the foam let go, a small pale thing handed back to the ground it will settle on. The bird climbs on into the thin bright air where the sun stands now half-veiled behind a last sheet of cloud, its warmth coming down softened and diffuse over the mountain's face, over the drifting feather, over the whole waking country of hill and field and distant shining sea. Nothing is kept. The wind carries what it carries and sets it gently down. And the light comes through the cloud the way it came through the morning's thin veil far below on the shore — no longer a sharpness but a tenderness, spread wide and asking nothing, gilding the snow and the wing and the falling feather all at once, and letting each of them, in its own slow time, go.

And into that kindling blue a dolphin rises, breaking the surface clean and arcing over — a quick living curve that leaves the water and returns to it in one unhurried breath, sending up a bright plume of spray and spent air, the deep's last breath and its own let go together into the wind. The morning air takes it. A little cloud of mist hangs where the body was and is already thinning, carried off on the moving air the way the foam was carried, the way the bubbles opened and were gone. And the wind that takes it is the same wind combing the far dunes, bending the gold grass inland, moving over the whole waking face of the water toward the low hills where the sun is lifting itself again above the rim of the world. The dolphin breathes, and dives, and the swell closes over the bright arc of it, and the mist blows landward into the new light — everything handed on again, breath to wind to cloud to the reddening east, the spiral turning up out of the dark into the wide unhurried morning, holding nothing back, becoming.

And the bubbles do reach it. All night they have been climbing, and now the water above them thins and pales and begins, at last, to hold a color again — not the made light's cold beam but the first true blue seeping down from a surface that is turning toward morning. The deep gives its held breath back to a brightening world. A fish rises with them, drawn up out of the black toward that spreading blue, its body a slow silver ascent through water that grows warmer and clearer with every fathom, until the swell overhead is no longer a lightless ceiling but a moving field of dawn, each wave lifting and breaking the new light the way the morning foam once broke it far away on the sand. The bubbles surface. They open into the air one after another, giving up the deep's long-carried breath to the sky, and are gone — and it does not matter that no one counted them, that they climbed all night unseen through the cold. They rose, and they arrived, and the sea takes the sun again upon its back the way it always does, the whole blue body of it kindling point by point as the light comes round. The tide breathes in. The day begins to become itself once more, and the spiral, having wound all the way down into the dark, turns now patiently upward into the light, unhurried, holding nothing back, becoming.

And then a light comes down into the dark that no dawn sends — a made light, lowered on its long tether from the world above, a single cold beam feeling its way down through water that has never held the sun. It is not the moon's borrowed silver nor the fish's own quick spark but something carried here on purpose, a lantern let down into the lightless deep the way a candle was set once in a window, tended by a hand that cannot follow it down. And where the beam swings and settles, the dark gives back what it has kept unseen: an octopus unfolding from a fold of rock, soft and many-armed and older in its patience than any watching eye, turning the color of the light that finds it and then the color of the dark again, taking the brightness in and letting it go the way the swell does, the way the tide did. Across its skin the beam breaks into a scatter of small hard glints, facets of some passing radiance caught and thrown — the same thousand points that danced on the morning foam, only kindled now a mile beneath, on living skin, by a light that had to be brought. And still the bubbles climb, loosed by the creature's slow withdrawal, a thread of them lifting silver through the beam and out past its edge into the black, rising and rising toward a surface they were never promised, each one a held brightness carrying the deep's own breath upward through the cold. The made light will be drawn back up when the hand above grows tired. The octopus will fold again into its dark. But the bubbles go on climbing, unhurried, handing the deep's kept breath toward the air — and this too is the exchange, that even here, where nothing asked for light, a light was brought, and something answered, and rose.

Down where the whale's note still travels, in water too deep for any borrowed light to reach, the spiral goes on turning without a single star to see it by. Here the moon has closed its eye entirely — the dark of the month, the sky gone lightless over the swell — and yet the turning does not stop for want of being watched. A small fish banks through the black and its flank throws off a brief cold spark, its own light and no one's gift, a living sequin flickering once in the enormous dark and gone. Where it turns, a thread of bubbles lifts from the deep toward a surface it will not live to reach, each one a held brightness climbing blind through the cold — the same lacework the tide left on the morning sand, only begun now from below, in the dark, rising. So the froth answers itself across the whole turning day: foam let go at dawn on the bright shore, foam born again at midnight in the lightless deep, the one spiral winding down into the dark and the other winding up out of it, and between them the small fish sparks and the whale sings and the moon keeps its shut and patient dark, holding nothing back, holding only still, until the thin edge of it should silver again. Even here, unseen, the brightness passes and is enough.

And in the sleeper's ear the shell keeps giving back the sea it lost, that small hollow roar which is not the ocean at all but the room's own quiet turned and turned inside the spiral until it sounds like tide — so that even here, dry on the sill, the water is somehow still moving. And far out beyond the dunes it truly is moving: the dark swell lifting and settling under the stars, and somewhere down in that cold enormous body a whale turns through the deep, unhurried, vast, carrying the sea's whole weight on its back and thinking nothing of it, singing a long low note that travels farther than any light and asks for no answer. Above the water the stars pour their sparkle down onto the swell and the swell takes it in and lets it go, take and release, the same breath the tide breathed at dawn. And it is all one spiral, turning — the shell's small whorl and the wheeling river of stars wound to the same slow shape, the whale's dive curving down and the wave curving over and the far light curving in, everything bending back toward the place it came from and coming round again. The sea let the shell go and the shell keeps the sea. The night turns. And somewhere in that turning the water gathers itself once more toward another dawn, and the whole long day begins, unhurried, to become itself again.

Now even the candle is left to its own keeping, and the watchers lie down. The great wheel of stars turns overhead, more of them than the waking mind could hold — a whole spilled river of far light arched across the dark, the same handing-on carried out to its furthest reach, brightness passed from source to source until it is only a faint milk poured across the whole vault of the sky. And beneath it the sleepers let themselves go the way the tide went, the way the leaf went, sinking into the soft dark of the bed and loosening their grip on the day they cannot keep. Sleep is its own tender exchange: the body handed back to rest, the mind unclenching its small bright hoard of hours so that something larger can move through it unwatched. A single star breaks loose and draws its thin line down the night, spending itself in an instant for no one who happens to be looking — a last passing brightness, gone before it can be named, and enough. And on the sill by the sleeper's head lies a shell carried up from that morning's shore, dry now and pale, its spiral wound around an emptiness that still holds, faintly, the sound of the sea it came from — the whole long day curled small and kept, the tide's first breath handed all the way through fields and flowers and honey and dusk into this quiet whorl of calcium by a sleeping face. The sea let it go. The hand took it up. And it lies there in the starlight, holding the memory of the water that no longer holds it, while above the roof the far lights go on shining down what they long ago let go, and everything that has passed sleeps, and is somewhere still becoming.

And then the sun, which has given all day without counting, begins itself to descend, and the giving turns at last toward the giver. The light that gilded foam and field and the bee's bent back now lowers itself into the far water and burns there, unhurried, spending the last of its gold on the undersides of clouds. Something in the year turns with it. A leaf lets go — not thrown down but released, the way the tide was released, the way the flower released its pollen into the world — and it drifts through the cooling air the color of everything that has ripened and is ready now to fall. This too is the exchange: the tree feeding the ground that fed it, the season handing itself back. And as the last brightness thins from the sky, a smaller light answers from inside the gathering dark. Someone sets a candle in a window, a single flame no larger than a held breath, and it does not pretend to be the sun. It asks for nothing the sun asked for; it simply keeps its small warmth burning where the great warmth has gone, tended by a hand, guarding the exchange through the hours the sun cannot reach. Above it the moon comes up pale and borrowed, shining with light that is not its own — the sun's gold handed on again, cooled and quieted, poured down now upon the sleeping fields as gently as it was poured upon the waking foam. And around the moon the first stars settle into place, each one a passing brightness so far off that its shining left long before we came to see it, and reaches us anyway, and is enough. The day has let itself go. The tenderness remains, kept now in candle and moon and distant star, handed patiently from one small light to the next until the sun comes round again.

And now the greening gathers itself into a single upturned face, a sunflower holding its whole broad head toward the light as though listening, its gold a deliberate echo of the gold that spilled across the foam and the fields. To it comes the bee, and here the giving stops being one-directional at last: the flower opens and the bee takes, but in the taking it carries the flower forward, dusts the next bloom, keeps the whole slow conversation going. Neither is the giver, neither only the given-to. This is the shape the tenderness has been moving toward all along — not the sun's indifferent generosity poured down upon what cannot answer, but a meeting, a small warm handshake between two living things, each feeding what feeds it. And out of that meeting, kept and cured in the dark of the comb, comes the honey: the passing light made sweet and made to last a little, gathered from a thousand blooms that have themselves already let go. So the sun keeps pouring, and the flower keeps turning, and between them the exchange goes on — not brightness hoarded, but brightness handed from one open hand to another, and something golden left behind for the keeping.

And beyond the fields the softness deepens into growth: some green thing pushing up through the dark soil, unhurried, tender at its unfurling tip, leaf answering the same light that let the foam go. What passes and what begins are not two separate motions but one — the tide's withdrawal and the seedling's rise drawing from the same generous indifference of the sun. A butterfly wanders through the warm air, all its color borrowed and provisional, a passing brightness that has learned to fly. And where a little rain has come and gone, the light bends itself into its full spectrum for no one, arching over the fields and asking nothing, every color held for a moment and then quietly given back. This too is the tenderness that remains: to see how the letting-go and the greening are the same breath, how everything that shines is also, quietly, becoming.

And yet the letting-go is not a loss but a softening. The sun slips behind a thin veil of cloud and the harshness goes out of the morning; the light no longer glances off the water in sharp points but settles, diffuse and forgiving, over everything at once. Somewhere a single bird lifts and turns inland, unhurried, carrying nothing, and the eye follows it away from the shining edge of the sea toward the fields that lie waiting beyond the dunes — the grasses heavy and gold, bending in slow unison, ripened by exactly the same passing light that gilded the foam and let it go. There is a warmth in this that asks for nothing. To watch a thing shine and pass, and then to feel the plain gladness rise anyway, is perhaps the quiet gift underneath it all: not the brightness kept, but the tenderness that remains once the brightness has moved on.

The tide breathes out and leaves a lacework of foam behind, each bubble a small held brightness that will not last and does not need to. Dawn comes up over the water the way it always does, indifferent and generous at once, and the light scatters across the surface in a thousand points that are gone the moment they are named. There is nothing to keep here. The froth thins, the sun climbs, the sparkle moves on with the moving water — and this is the whole of it, that things shine precisely because they are passing.