the nine ladies

the nine ladies

you are sleeping now.
slumbering stones
warmed by the sun,
your mossed flanks
tickled by the kiss of a fragile breeze.

late with the dance of purpled night,
unfurled like time’s promise,
each stone awakens.
loosed from pause
by the tumbling moon.

and when the tents have closed their eyes,
when the owls are on the wing,
when the grass slides silent into its own skin,
you dance.
nine maidens untouched by human eye.

and curled within the shadows,
of shadows of shimmer,
you are once more what you were before,
reeling for the darkened fiddler,
whose tune is the call of the dawn.

as sunlight spills birdsong
over the twilight dew,
there is something out there,
in the retreat of night’s rue.
something older than all of us.