Whether Live or Dead Still Enmeshed in Life’s Blue Nymphaea Caerulea Weave

 

The dragon, the unseen,
comes from the lily’s
pristine, polished cup.
And the cup?

It swims atop
aquatic black
curtained in the dark,
with the bottom

giving in to muck,
as one can see
in Maya iconography
from Herbert Spinden’s book (1917).

And the lilies’ pad—
not unlike a wicker fan,
even a wrap of cracking egg—
that loops and knots

the passage, rushing
through that which is not,
and which only
what never ends

can unlock—
that one should call
with the name of life,
winding in and out

through the coils
of knowing
that rises and ebbs
for the mortals like a tide.