SAINT JOHN'S TIDE



The earth breathes out its summer truth in leaves ----

umbrellas over tattered planet skin ----

revealing memories of winter fears. Earth grieves

for negligence, the purely mortal sin.


At Saint John's Tide, the children shout

and leap across the fiery abyss

of twigs that symbolize the burning out

of last year's sins ---- they do believe in this.


He leapt for joy inside his mother's womb,

when news of cousin Jesus' coming filled

the universe ---- two sisters in one room

possessing every hope that gods had willed.


The turning point of human history:

the pregnant earth is still a mystery.






from "Post-Existential Sonnets," Folio I
by Tom Mellett, Austin, Texas, 1987













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