Two from 'Candle, Thread, & Flute' by Kathryn Hinds

"If We Don't Turn the Wheel, It Will Not Turn" 

Our ancestors in their simplicity, 
we hear, believed the spent midwinter sun
would die at last and never rise again
without their rites -- so every turning of
the seasons had its keeping and its forms,
and failure in them meant the end of all.
"Now we know better" -- or do we know less?
In the pattern's loss, what have we gained?
The days we set aside to mourn the sun
or drive the cattle through the fires or bless
the fields joined our spirits, bodies, minds
to the moving heart of all. We did not turn
the earth upon its axis--what we turned, 
and still might turn, was purely our own souls. 

---

Sunset Over Lake Ontario

We walk over the water-smoothed stones of the beach
to a driftwood log where we sit
and rest our eyes on the shifting sky.
We see the changes as they tableau before us,
but not the actual changing - -not
the occult process that streaks and swirls
fiery unnamed shades of yellow, red, pink, orange
over the restless waters.

Without speaking, we promise not to speak
in the presence of what we cannot describe.
We could drink it all down if we could,
or breathe it through every pore.

We try not to stare at the closing eye
of the day, but its burning red-orange
is a seduction--we could look at it long
and see it ever after. We resist temptation
and at last are reprieved by the blessed dusk,
the between time before the stars, when the earth
undergoes its own dark changes, shadows
lending shape to elemental creatures
at the water's edge, at the fringes
of our sight--we acknowledge them
without voice or conscious thought...
and know it is time to leave.
Walking through the white sweet clover to the road,
we savor what we have tasted--
our world transfigured, transformations far beyond 
our human reach, yet reaching us--and wonder
what we would be if we closed all our days 
silently watching the sky into night.