Of Water And Light Poem by Dianne Feaver

What maid is this to bathe
as water-sprite in merry play
where lilies float on willows,
her every charm a scented vapor
of young lotus and new vine?
What girl lives beyond the vale
and takes her pleasures as she will
standing by the water's edge,
so fair as to hear a leaf in breeze
as song ringing through the Summer air?

How does she move in crystal shafts,
the curve of her breast a silver flash
beneath love's sweet hollow of her neck?
What lady bathes in iridescent light,
each turn of wrist so fine as to faint
the eye of he who sees her there?
Fair maid, young man, both to hide
in leaf and shade, one innocent in life
one watchful from a darker side.

Youth falls heavy to this lad, his spirit
lost in willful thrust, no one to guide him,
there need in him no follower to trust.
He is not truer as a man than this moment,
hid in quiet breathlessness, her beauty,
a song of yearning bursting in his chest.
One turn more and Heaven pours
her hair a shower lit, pure gold.

He cannot breathe as she draws near
but hears the water's green caress.
Ah! How He dreams their droplets
fall as motes and drift in halos.
His eyes for her as birds to see this maid
and trill his call beyond this place
where love stands waiting in the sun,
a slant laid low on forest floor,
she steps into the water and hears
a joyful sigh rise above the shore.

As fawn and buck are to the chase, he turns
and parts the fern and reed, her face
a startled doe, a golden frieze of maiden,
she trips the mossy stone and falls.
O' what lad lives who could resist
this moment given? A man waiting to be born
in a wooded pool of evening light
cannot hold back, he reaches out,
she is as thistledown in flight.

When new leaves are soft in curl,
when tender roots push fertile soil,
every sound of cloud and wind
and night filled rain and storm whirls
as one voice completely innocent,
deaf to all but breath and blood, blind
to all but skin and hair and hand and soul
He feels the man he must be, she meets,
not sees, his eyes in need, her limbs
are sunlight shimmering in silver
as they fall among the reeds.

What place is this that rises up
and carries sound too far
to hear what lovers say in ripples?
What place is this but an arbour,
a chance to be a woman, she speaks
of love, he is not there, he cannot be.
The air is singing, she cries, the air, the air!

What maid is this who bathes alone,
a water-sprite in merry play, but she who hears
too late the lotus drown, no one to reach
the shore, to catch a stone to foot.
In one  heartbeat, she is undone,
no Spring will ever be as green.
In one heartbeat she is gone,
his delight a prize he won.