dew-drop Diana at dawn. her feral pearls half hide, half highlight a brief beginning glimpsed on tiptoe -
the morning mist lifting, like a shy yet soon-shed shift. hot holds hands with cold, hide mates show.
spring showers fill fresh rills, rivulets rush and thrill then dry, foreknowing the ocean's ebb and flow.
what's love? she loves the thigh-held horse-ride. what's love? of lad? of lass? what is this tide, this tug, this undertow?

noon now. strong sun. large light. hard heat. in summer's crucible, gravid grassy grains are burnt bronze and burnished
to a Golden-Age fecundity. all is curved and full and ripe, ready to burst apart with blessedness.
power shimmers in the furnace air, mixing the flux of solid and fluid, churned and querned and threshed
by thews that gleam and glisten; sweat, dropping onto dust, chimes the pulse's heart-strong timeliness.

the colours disappear, leaving unseen air. the ended flame forms ash which feeds the growing grain;
but we get scared, and misname blackness as malign; we make up killer Kali, and dungeon hells of pain.
we do not care to hear the hunting owl shriek, the bat's high pipe, the whispered susurrations;
we shun the fresh-flown smells of flesh, we squirm at slime-strewn curls of hair, we spurn moon-ruled sensations.

we paint over the neglect-negated nothingness with noisy day, and extend the whitewash to the ageing grey
of evening, a twilight too entwined with darkness for our gaudy selves to bear. we lose, we throw away
that wisdom, to make way for facts - about today and here (about all else, all others we do not care) -
and when we, tourist mortals, seek the thought-through voice of timeless judgement: she is no longer there.

notes

A triad of 3 Fates was recognised by the Ancient Greeks (called Moerae), Romans (called Parcae) and Vikings (called Norns). The seasons - Horae - were also sometimes considered to be 3 in number. The number three has been linked to the visible phases of the moon (waxing, full, and waning) and each phase has been linked to a Greek goddess (Artemis [equated to the Roman Diana], Selene, and Hecate respectively). Themis was the personification of social order in Greek mythology and also the mother of the 3 Moerae, sired by Zeus. Kali is a Hindu goddess associated with death, killing, the colour black, and time.