Submersion

Submersion

Out in the charcoal day, grown

small as fallen kings

still dignified in diminishment.

Careful where once solid we

calculate aisles of snow through cloud veils

into a sharp submersion; 

the cost of wild baptisms once assumed. 

Later illusions sweat to inner star embers

awaiting some shining dream.

We sink ice plunge into stoic silence search

the breath-catch focus gifted in

the cold’s burn. 

Owl rises then magnificent from frosted bulrushes,

yellow eyes penetrate like an axe shatters ice revealing

truth coal catalysts

ready to blaze like unsung songs stuck in the world’s throat with 

premonitions of what still could be.

Silent flier through the black-branched day; an omen’s shadow.

We grow wise in the watching ‘till whisper-stilled

hushed heartbeats, silent feet,

now faint and wide as old horizons. 

Air slows to vapour threads

entwining this momentary passage

into the extinguishing day.