and even as she was eaten away.

dark coils and
marigolds grew in her garden.

robin's nests and rabbit warrens,
built inside the click of her needles.

while her strength held, she
knitted one thousand X 11

knots and seeds, nests and garters.

she whispered into the seams of his
bandages, she incanted the quiet room
of the Wabet.

this was her way, and so be it.

and her fate was sealed,
no prayer could undo it.
it was "quiet, quiet"
then the quick explosion.

but his fate?

one woven by another and not by he?

it could be undone, the bandages
wished into a cocoon.  but for all
things ~

a price ~

                         but to pay it?

"remember," whispered the night sky.

"your death is much
longer than your life,"

one as
certain as the other is
unknowable.

hush the hum, and follow the star gazer.

"i have known the queen, even as she
taught her workers to make the comb,
then the sweetest thing,

                       wax and wane and hex and oath."

you can move closer to her, and be less afraid.
but you will lose everything that you have made.

just as the caterpillar, green and fat and knowing
nothing of life but the milk and the weeds.  must
abandon all sense of reason, to follow the gold dust,
the god lust,

                     you must cut off your head to enter the
                              land of plenty.

there is honey in the rock and a sea divided.

you must wish your wings into existence,
and look into the eye of the universe ~

this is how you fly away,
     i am sorry,
         
          there is no other way into it.