Bromliad

Our dreams are as bright as your lions,
Those golden beasts in tapestries of thought

These are the figures indistinct in memory
So fragile that distraction falls and shatters

We are bromeliad, idea, those pretty Meta
Morphoses in epoch, thought, and distance

These are the places I have never been,
To see the carp lie deep in summer pools

We are a draught upturned, dun reservoir
Of growth to hold deep heaven in a cup

These are the sounds no breeze does bear;
Dim burr over gorse which the grouse hear

We are the form of architectural gold and line
To drink down life to still clear pools of heart

These are the songs lying out on the paving
Saddles of infinity, hares across the grass

We are vessels cupped to time and growing
As we turn this span of age toward the strata

Night, among the butresses of giants; the civic
Embers of a structure burnt and moved away.

~Ruth Barker

King Bromliad