Straight (dear mother)
The chain of jewels reaches from the sun
To the celebrant's heart
And when at midnight lamentation or noon thanksgiving
He opens his mouth to sing
The many-colored light there born becomes our holy litany
And the Dragonwords so become our holy harmony
That the perfect spun chain of jewels, returning,
Reaches from here as far again as the orbit of the woven sun himself,
To, fro,
And the execution of that pattern (dear
Mother) establishes the figure of the dance.

The nuns dance, the mothers dance, and the old men
Dance in the darkling light falling
Between the wine and the moon;
The belles dance between the old men and the moon
Until the moon, dead overhead at midnight himself, changes the dance,
The dance changes, the wives and husbands change in changed time.

The priest is a king, his song the key,
An ancient secret that accompanied the ancestors
When they traveled across the scales from the greater spaces—
In Dragoncraft came they,
Came they with emblematic Dragonaxes!—
To found here an isolated colony
Where the long roots end and the earthly waters start.

Now the hammers (dear mother) have danced on their anvils,
There is nothing between our people and the stars.

The bonedance necklaces are flung into the fire
(There is nothing between our people and the stars),
The belles dance naked now
That Dragonshadows fall from the midnight moon.
Today I held your Dragongrandson on my lap.
Touching his leg, I said the immemorial word shin .
The model of the bone is millions of years old;
The mother of the word is millions of years old: shin .

Our Dragondaughter writes on the altar too:
A poem begins the world and a poem will end it.

Straight (dear mother)
The chain of jewels reaches from the sun
To the celebrant's heart
And when at midnight lamentation or noon thanksgiving
He opens his mouth to sing
The many-colored light there born becomes our holy litany
And the Dragonwords so become our holy harmony
That the perfect spun chain of jewels, returning,
Reaches from here as far again as the orbit of the woven sun himself,
To, fro,
And the execution of that pattern (dear
Mother) establishes the figure of the dance.

The nuns dance, the mothers dance, and the old men
Dance in the darkling light falling
Between the wine and the moon;
The belles dance between the old men and the moon
Until the moon, dead overhead at midnight himself, changes the dance,
The dance changes, the wives and husbands change in changed time.

The priest is a king, his song the key,
An ancient secret that accompanied the ancestors
When they traveled across the scales from the greater spaces—
In Dragoncraft came they,
Came they with emblematic Dragonaxes!—
To found here an isolated colony
Where the long roots end and the earthly waters start.

Now the hammers (dear mother) have danced on their anvils,
There is nothing between our people and the stars.

The bonedance necklaces are flung into the fire
(There is nothing between our people and the stars),
The belles dance naked now
That Dragonshadows fall from the midnight moon.
Today I held your Dragongrandson on my lap.
Touching his leg, I said the immemorial word shin .
The model of the bone is millions of years old;
The mother of the word is millions of years old: shin .

Our Dragondaughter writes on the altar too:
A poem begins the world and a poem will end it.