IRC-Galleria

There are Rivers of Oranges


There are rivers of oranges, sweet
like the autumn sun, sweet
like sand on the doubloon
found at the bottom of sleep,
like the sweet stars we delicately peel,
like the roots of acorn squash,
like the eyes of the jaguars in Peru.

When we deeply imagine
we no longer imagine at all,
but dive, at last, naked and alive,
into the flesh of oranges, into
the steaming jungle, into words
that hang like orange rain,
like love just before it happens.

It is everything we ever wanted
to remember, like empty orange
file folders labeled “Careers,” like
the lover who walks backwards
through every shift of love until
he arrives home, to the place
where what is seen inside is what is.

There the orange mind bursts
like a village of chrysanthemums
gone mad, or gathered together
for mass, praising
the orange hands of God, praising
the saffron eyes of the flower saints,
praising the hearts in the tiny seeds.

[This poem is from Letters from a Stranger, by James Tipton (Conundrum Press, 1998)]