The merchant came and saw
that nothing was left in the marketplace —
that the stalls were empty, that there were no
vases, flutes, carpets, or jewels;
that there were not even stalls, only desert.
They were all saying: it does not matter to us, we know no thirst.
But the merchant still knew it, so he took a shortcut
and brought the inner rain to a halt,
and this was drought upon what was already dry.
And as in ancient times the crops, so now the dreams withered —
they need the salts of the earth
as much as the inner wellspring.
The merchant set up the market anew
and laid out upon it fantasies wrapped in sapphire,
brilliant dreams set with rubies,
infinite chimeras swathed in silver bubbles
that floated in the air like pipe smoke.
And all of them, sleepless, ran to the market
to bleed themselves once more.
We Are Wellspring, p. 11