It seems I sat awake a thousand years
Beneath the branches of an iron tree
Waiting while a single fruit ripened to its fullness
Hungry for the perfume of a summer long in coming;
Eyes wide I dreamed a cosmos into being
And a goddess warm as honey in the icy black
Between the stars; the world of earth and water
Beating out a heartbeat in its clash, died
And shrank about me, engulfing me in darkness
Broken only by a moon, a mirror of heaven
As infrequent and inconstant as the shadow of a flame;
Thirst of ages, I have longed to drink
Of water from the moon; Light of heaven,
I have longed to see again.  But in this gloom
There is nothing for my eyes, and I can see
No fruit upon the tree; I am old
And feel nothing but the hollow of no world.

Yet, here in this night, my night of nights,
The bell-like flower of a sound comes to me like light.