Beauty is brief and violent

Beauty is brief and violent

like the white thunderbolt

of Nilgiri slow and sudden

braided like her hair

one morning was a cluster

of grapes hung beside each

ear maybe it comes from where

hunger the voices of children

come breaking their way

to my heart the stones

my feet which are light

and heavy from walking

that path full and swift

the river flows eroding

the banks with its sinuous

desire gentle and unkind

the days the years boulders

tossed by a giant down the hill

we must climb to the sudden

sinuous blue