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.