Beauty: Marilee Clement

You Russian Doll

You tawny flank 

You grey dunes 

You valleys in the dunes 

      where rosy succulents prod molecular

      the packed embankments writ with salt lines

      with what glad ignorance
      do they deny the force above, below?

      as if they could build another redwood forest

      from their hidden sand floor, 

You crevasse hiding the garden, you windbreak 

You bent Junipers

       our made art from what bonsai the wind is always doing

       oh hider of best secrets, doing your work in patterns we are ever hunting

You seed pod,

You ovary

You bloom

You ornate carriage

      inside of which is our dainty czarina

      and inside of her painted mouth, space

      inside her lungs, breath

                which is a kind of waiting 

                to become words

                    then worlds

      inside her ringlet curls, "nothing"
You the waiting emptiness, the nothing around which our double-helixes wrap,

You evidence 

You fecund,
You delighted wife
of truth

giving form to all things