The Phoenix's Country: Fire and Water

The phoenix in the sun's immortal realm
Unfolds her wings and begins her own sunrise
Above the rose-crowned oak and flame-crowned elm,
Themselves crowning what is all-fair to eyes.
Soft light spirals downwards from her golden wings
That teach the amaranth immortal-wise.
And the song that the nightingale by moonlight sings
Cannot with her wings' darting flames compare,
And cannot stand rank with her eyes' brilliant fire
That soars above the stars of the upper air
Which sing ever of bittersweet silver desire;
Than the sun and moon's songs she is more fiercely fair.

She dances above a quiet green country
With gold-crowned trees and soft brilliant streams
That as far as even a phoenix's eyes can see
Move and glide like winsome dreams within dreams,
Now like the silver-green sky, now the hue of ash,
Reflecting the shifting light that the dawn's gleams
Have not yet banished with their cloudy flash,
The deep gray and black, the tail end of night.
Birds are beginning to sing their morning songs,
A soft paean of praise and welcome to light
That stirs the heart's cauldron till the heart longs
To forsake the dark, and foresee the bright.

The phoenix moves confidently, calmly aloft,
Following the track of the slow-moving sun
That makes the air about him all snowy-soft
Long before the first bright hounds give tongue
And there begins a general hunting of beams
Down the stairs and waters which with light run.
The rays polish the air with sunlight till it gleams.
The streams are all dancing to a radiant tune
Piped out by watchers hiding in dells
Who have waited for the grieving moon
To take to exile her horde of silvery bells,
And the gold butterfly to come from the cocoon.

The phoenix enters a calm golden world,
While below the streams are scrubbed like jewels
To take the golden light that form heaven is hurled
And spin it with water in deep hidden pools
Until they create gems of such sapphire splendor
That the water dances until the stream cools.
They hone the jewel's facets to sharp and slender
Points of perfect burning magnificence,
While downstream the rapids toss out the dross
Of water that could not bear such blue elegance.
But even this turns to a foamy white froth,
In sunlight a storm of silver radiance. 

The phoenix alights on a rose-crowned tree,
And bends her head like a narcissus to water,
To see what a queen she is and may be.
Droplets that would drive her flames to steamy slaughter
Swirl to crown her with a chaplet of roses,
This queen of flame who is the sun's daughter.
Water that in the deep pools dozes
Offers up to her the bright jewels a-borning.
The phoenix eyes each sharp sweet sapphire
That her golden brow and wings is adorning,
And bows her head again, this time to admire
The water's tribute to her and to the morning.