There is a water,
cool and bright,
beside an orchard.
Beneath those trees
the sun seldom
shines
except to nurture
fairy circles of grass,
soft and thick
and made for resting in.

In that orchard
there are many fruits,
succulent,
sweet,
new-sprung for
spring-time
adoration.
Pagan in their
natural depiction,
their like exists
nowhere
else
and there is nothing
in the wide world
that feels as they do
in the mouth,
on the tongue,
on the lips.

In that orchard
there is a linden
tree
that blooms all
the year round.
A pillar of the nine worlds.
White, silken blossoms
that drop in the wild
dark beneath the trees,
stirred and shaken.
The whole of the
orchard is scented
with them until even
the gods themselves
are distracted
from their thunderbolts
and their lightnings
and come to be fascinated
in their breasts
by the fullness of them.

I would take you to
that orchard
and I would ask the universe
to see you,
more cool upon my skin
than the coolest water,
darker and brighter
in my soul than the shadows of
the orchard.
With your glory, soft and thick,
a wild thicket.
More heavenly to breathe
in than my beloved linden
blossoms
and better,
richer,
sweeter
in the mouth,
upon the tongue
and the lips
than any other fruit
the gods can despise
for its perfection
and nurture for fear of ruin.

You are my sustenance,
that which cools me,
the darkness of my passion,
the thunder and the lightning
that drives me across the
face of the very world
that I may come to you again
and make love to you beneath
a linden tree
so that we can forget the gods
and so that they
cannot help but remember us.

And when all of that is done
and we have shaken the roots
of the ocean,
we will rest and be content
beneath the laden branches.
They will be content with us
beside the cool water
and we will be new fruit
for a very old world.