:+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+: Two Poems from *FIELDS* by Don Wellman :+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+: THE MAELSTROM The red river flows into the desert Pinpoints -- meal scattered on the waves flares in roseate swirls, engulfing the sea So the dead pass The oars turn into sails Dancing rocks grind the soft ledge Always biting more deeply Basins, black-rimmed in the moon-flood where the stream has been diverted to power the mills Chattering, oiled knives Mere shadows weave cotton ticking, bandaging The hosts lie on the shore in unmade beds, half-awake counting the little stars, desiring more A universe of whole numbers The nurse turns from the fire to the iced window Her reflections devour the forest A doe leaps over the burning hedge Branches reaching up to catch her, dissolve ascending in a column The eagles soar, crying She dispenses broad specifics, menthol, aloes The glass becomes water, the water a door into the rock Responding to the light, a shadow scales the crystalline face A sail, frozen in windless waters -- wedge that divides time past from time to come :+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+: THREE RIVERS In the green wood, blue cosmos joins yellow earth On the globe, projected as a plane, blue squares and red lit with yellow track a storm Among the three rivers, a white line from navel to breastbone branches at the collar bone Black is the presence of transition Wood that is white in the grain, fire reduces to ash The third river is red; its line, parallel to that of the white, runs toward the offering bowl Where the path branches, enter the bush Place the medicine in the crotch of a forked stick White sap under the red bark Know that a black hulled ship passes by night over the horizon Bearing one whose beard is red gold to his wife, the moon Among the three rivers, gold, yellow, brown are red Blue, an ample white Green, like fire, is red where the dying light quickens the marsh grass Among cabled villages, green is black Secrets unravel where none were before passing like mold spore through the conduits of night Whitenoise is a dryness before death Eating some mushrooms after sunset an ancestor spirit infects the heart of an unobservant descendant To eat, to secrete Red of meat, white of teeth that smile in welcome To hide is black, that one schemes in feast or fast To consecrate, the air is white Discriminate, the rivers do not mix, but each runs in its channel toward two wisdoms: one of the hand, and one of the mind The apple when its skin is red, the flesh is white White in the polar regions of coldest thought is a form of absence made visible Sap spurts from the neck of the white cock A black place where two rivers issue Male and female, each with its own laws, each with laws in common In the male who roars like a bull, the genitals shrink to resemble those of a child Better that the first menses stain white sheets than a wound freshly bandaged A woman may show her knees when raising richly furled skirts The man sways from the waist down only In each, blood swells the heart muscle, breath spends its force Semen and milk equally distend the vein The taste of blood oranges dances equally in the throats of those who behold the figures sweeping in circles under the stars The rivers conjoin only above the fork, north of north Only in the recesses of a cave, that is red like a throat and south of the center, do male and female conjoin At one pole fife begins, at the other it ends rivers separately entwined do not mix but are one upon a ground invisible to eyes :+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+: "Three Rivers draws upon Victor Turner's "Color Classification in Ndembu Ritual" in *The Forest of Symbols.* :+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+: *FIELDS*, published by Light and Dust Books, is available through the Grist On-lIne Bookstore. Copyright 1995 by Don Wellman. :+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+::+=:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+:=+: