Oracle

1
The message is written
on a page of water
above which a crystal drop
trembles.
2
The message is the apple
slightly beyond reach
that falls at its own moment
into the hand no longer
waiting, wanting.
3
The message is the seed
inside the shell's spiral.
4
To interpret the message
requires only one thing:
the invention of new ways
of interpreting.
5
Oracles merely magnify
what is in the nature of things —
fruitfulness, disaster
experienced more keenly
because they come as
an answer to a question.
6
Advice is harmful.
I give it only to those
who never act on it —
the very ones who
always ask for it.
7
I speak in metaphor to the literal-minded,
in plain words to the suggestible.
I am a poet and a scientist.
If this creates havoc,
I'm not responsible.
I am a trickster only on Thursdays,
or when the moon is in its third quarter,
or when a tide of sea-mist drowns the valley.
8
An oracle must use
every ambiguity,
stop just this side of
despoiling language.
Thus the listener is
forced to dislocate
words, dig under them
to where networks of
roots wind down to
the inverted tree.
9
My one gift is that I can hear
the earth's heartbeat.
Do you really think I don't
know what you're up to?
10
Imagination is full knowledge of the possible.
I offer half-knowledge of the inevitable.
11
And my own fate?
"What?' "When?' "Who?' "How?'
— not interesting questions.
I never ask them.
12
My eyes are accustomed to the dimness;
it sharpens them. My owl and I
look at each other across this space.
Only when too much light enters
does she sleep, sweeping through
thickets of dream, murmuring.
13
Prophecy is the fabled
honeycomb of gold
wrought by Daedalus.
Cold as eternity
it contains many spaces
waiting to be filled
with wisdom — the honey
that holds warmth, light,
carries the scent of flowers.
14
Though earth is my element,
I can hear the sea beyond the mountains.
It gives us word and chaos,
shape and dissolution — rhythms reversing,
flowing over us, as our ears echo
with wavefall, wingbeat,
and the almost audible
song of the dolphin
threading in half-moon arcs
through crystal darkness.