An overripe fruit falls to the ground
as rusted pages of coffee-stained Sanskrit
loosened from a fig tree,
whirl wild, reckless, shimmying and free
up to the blackening skies
after knocking the fallen fruit into a barren cave
a snake pit
that long ago served as a tomb
where only the living dwelt,
waiting to give death to birth.
A black crow nearby with a broken wing
descends upon the tiny, broken carcass
of a decomposing dove
as lightning flashes above,
frightening the crow away
where it seeks shelter beneath a weather-beaten bench
that was crafted by the callused hands
of a bearded man
with the flogged flesh of an ancient tree which stood,
bleeding sap near a plantation
many storms ago.
Another rancid fruit falls to the ground
as a peal of thunder shakes the earth
and the dove, unravaged by the crow
suddenly trembles and composes back to its former state
of animation
while a rattlesnake winds its scaly body against a mossy rock
outside of the barren cave,
shedding its skin in one shiver.
Suddenly, the rusted pages of the coffee-stained Sanskrit
emerge from the pit in the beak of the dove
as the snake, now strangulating the branch of the fig tree
hisses and strikes at the wind
which has taken the form of a woman,
welded into the air by the smoking ashes of now incinerated pages,
feathers of a crow, and resurrected seeds
swirling up now to the haloed sky, wild, joyous, shimmying and free.
The cores of the barren fruits hurl themselves
into the dark, moist womb of the tomb,
which still serves as a sanctuary where withering serpents gestate and dwell,
waiting to give birth to death.
