I’ve seen fortunes fall
Like plumb lines
Down
From a tree
Apples bounce
Arrested
By gravity’s
Baleful sea
I’ve uttered endless
Profanity
Drunken wine
By the yard
Tickled grapes a plenty
And masqueraded as a bard
But for all my ceaseless yearning
My turning of the lathe
My planning of the wood
Unsettled darkness in the cave.
I’ve sought some warmth in company
In jocular feeding of the joker’s drum
I’ve tucked, nipped, kicked some laughter
From the dumb.
For those that won’t laugh will laugh
And those that crease with tears
Will know that in the reckoning there is endless
Hurt, and wretched jeers.
There’s no escaping destiny, no jack-knifing of fate
Character is a temporary shape for consoling the wasted wantonness of the
wait.
So feel yourself more slowly, don’t rush to define your harm
The pain is ready waiting, to counteract life’s balm
And death is hollering quietly, lurking by the gate – switching head side to
side in moonlight, sweeping cowardly ghosts in his wake.
Cleave to the border of wholeness
To the thick black line on the map
To your heart, that compass of fullness
To the love the shields your back…
To the life that nature gives us, to the dogs that bound through our souls
The sheep and the fields and the woodlands and the man that carries the
coal.
And the dusk that settles each season, and the sunlight that curves with the
hour and the summer and the winter completion and the freedom with which
true spirit expires.
