Hail, bright crescent, when owl glides into wood,
and sparrow perches where icicles hang.
Even winter death proves sacred and good,
since it carries away by frost and fang
all that was delicate or decrepit,
and steels all beings, priming them to bloom.
Leaf pods terminate each twig and branchlet,
latticing pink sun in dawn’s dying gloom.
First songbirds nibble at last year’s berries;
mushroom and termite gnaw on wind-felled oak.
Vigor rises from that which death buries:
shattered shell on leaves stirs alchemy’s yolk.
Life springs up from dead flora and fauna—
Big Bangs bursting from seas of nirvana.
