where once

here where heat once rose from the belly, the color of our gatherings now pales. steeped in a memory washed away beneath us to run with the rivers down to a sea of silent waves singing a cradle song. eternal in its course, where once our paths clipped the limbs and wrenching vine's ripe wires. this pale fish rises in the day, its silver scales sprouting wings, to fly into a clouded sky. she mingles there with the moist matter of the heavens, in time to rain down upon the earth now barren of seed, where desolate empty hands furrow, searching the core for substance. for the silver fish_____________