Two Women of Magic

                                For Chotsey, Rio Caliente October 96

Light thickens at the close of day,

the river steams in cooling air.

Two brides walk margins, whitened beds

tumbled with pumice at our feet.

So hot no fishes tremble here,

no reeds, no lilies at the boil.

Mud-footed flowers warmly dewed

weep day and night beside this stream.

You know the source of all this heat

that flows just tame enough to touch.

It springs from red earth hot with blood

of witches healed by centuries.

Cyclamen hillside enshadows

the well where virgins sacrificed,

deeply released in tombs of chalk.

Their powdered bones milken the stream.

We inhale, drawing vision in,

powerful medicine of herbs.

Stories rise, our misty prayers

uplifted in the heated breath.