The Gentler Arts

	Within these sacred crystal walls
	Where soft the tune of water falls,
	We have created another world,
	One of women and of girls,
	In this place of water, place of walls.

	Luminous, lit from within,
	The walls enclose like a second skin
	The world of calm and graceful hours,
	The world of spun silk and glass flowers,
	In this place of light, this place of skin.

	Here, we kneel to brush our hair,
	And what treasures we have found there!
	Our combs send out singing lines of light,
	And sometimes birds take sudden flight,
	In this place of treasures, this place of hair.

	Our hands wash through the water dim,
	And here we bathe, and here we swim.
	And the golden fishes dart in flashes
	Past our feet, in gleaming fits and snatches,
	In this place of bathing, this place dim.

	We dance many times to harpists' tunes,
	For some are the ladies who could charm the moons
	To fall from the sky with their sweet playing.
	And our dancing is love, our dancing is praying,
	In this place of music, place of moons.

	Birds flit through the brilliant gardens,
	And alight on our hands when the ice hardens
	Their bare-tree perches past all bearing.
	The birds never seem to mind our staring,
	In this place of winter, place of gardens.

	We weave cloth that through our hands like light
	Flows and falls, and then turns lucent to sight.
	And we clothe ourselves in gowns of silk
	The color of sunrise, the color of milk,
	In this place of transparency, of light.

	White-limbed creatures moving at times in dreams,
	We dance and sing beside the flowing streams,
	And think not of the outer world tragic,
	Here in our world of the gentler magic,
	In this place of singing, place of dreams.