Valley

The sorcerers of Sheboygan
have trick-rich sleeves.

A river has carved
a flat-bottomed bowl of a valley
from old, old hills.

In the middle of the river
Dexter sits cross legged on a boulder,
surrounded first by water,
then by meadow,
then by forest,
then by starry sky.

The other sorcerers
have parked their carcasses
all along the rim of the bowl,
waiting for Dexter to make his move.

The world spins toward sunrise
and Dexter makes himself
more and more boulder-like;
feels every crystal,
every grain,
every pore
from molten root
to smoothed and rounded summit;
feels a sea of power
flowing through everything.

With a TWIST,
he whirls a power-storm
around his calm center.

As when one swirls a cup of water
around the bottom of a large bowl
and, higher and higher,
the sides get wet,
so do the hills become soaked in power
as Dexter swirls the magic
faster and faster.

From the left and slightly below
Sinclair feels the power flow,
fresh and fiery, green and growing,
all through his nerves the power glowing.

This has potential, Sinclair thinks--
and, so, it has.

With a TWIST
he spins it to a gazillion filaments,
rough and raw and ready for dyeing.

Marcos reaches into his bag
and pulls out a corduroy jacket
with suede sleeve patches.

He shrugs, and hands it to Liam,
who shrugs and plays
a Zip-Zop song
on his new cloth washboard
with a patting flap
of percussion on the patches.

The tendrils TWIST
themselves to myriad hues
and dance to Liam's tune.

Felix, counterclockwise,
sees the writhing wave
and TWISTS
the tune to
a Zip which thirsts,
jaunty and jubilant,
and a Zop which hungers,
stern and determined.

Downstream, Pasquale waits,
humming up a spectral loom
and the power comes
Zipping and Zopping along.

He TWISTS
the strings into a net,
a warp and weft of
expedience and hindrance
to accept the seekers
and shunt the sneerers away.

Finally, to Max--
all this power
tweaked and twisted
around the rim of the hills
to Max--
who TWISTS
space enough for everyone
and pours it, and all the power,
back into the valley
which sops it up
like a giant granite sponge.

"Let Jocasta know:
we're ready to go."