Hellbender Salamander

Tell me again how we all came from the same place.
Where you are here, opening your palm to the shaking

wriggle of worm-force, the blackness, the
soul-less gravity of imperatives watching

your unfolding, the light, the distance overcome
in the waters, the tides, the blood of time,

your age, the warp of your witness,
shadows unfurling into light, your orbit,

your center of iron, blatant divisions that must be
crossed before you can express the inexpressible.

this is love unwound. this is love before it knows itself.
this is love becoming itself, time deciding what is and is not.

this is love casting its shadow upon the deep.
twisting out of its cocoon, bursting through the soil, the night.