Me, a little round of dirt, 

Wet earth, cradled, 

In her hand, 

Plucked from a crib of 

Soil, 

Made up with

sheets of lichen, and

pillows of moss,

From which I left a shape

As perfect: a shadow. 

She held me to her heart,  then,

That which I heard, but with no ears, 

Remembered as the soft drum of 

Skin, pulled tight against butter-fly-ribs. 

She, lit by the moon, dewy, star-like, 

had me there, In her gaze, 

And I, unable to return it, 

Stared, dumbly, into her ox-eyes. 

And so soon did she, 

out of grace, bring me to 

Abalone lips, from which 

Issued the sweet stream of 

Heaven-sent speech 

That I could not understand, 

But pined to, regardless. 


So shortly back to my nursery

did she lower me, pregnant 

with something, 

Where I slept, dreamless, unstirring, 

For forty weeks, 

and she, in my whilsting, on winged feet, 

Came to, and, with silver spoons, 

Fed me otter-fat, and peach-juice, 

And pomegranate-seed, 

Until I awoke, draped in the gossamer, 

Silvery rays of a full moon:

A young boy! the spitting image

of the Woman,  who,

Looking down, From on-high, 

Smiled to 

Break the Sun 

Into the pitched sky. 

Once, you had me, and I haven't had

The sense to ask again for a like

Blessing; that scene now seems wild, strange, not where

You, with your silvery bow, and aim so fine,

Had me struck with that pale fire, and I

Not yet used to that kind, yours, light-bearer,

Sat stupid, buck-eyed, daring no breath, but to

Run. When you, out of some pity, or regret, placed

Warmth on the length of my neck and

Curled your fingers round it, and looked at me

In a way not thought possible to lowliness such as myself,

hoofed and heavy-hearted; there twofold did you show me

the opposite of suffering, when that heavenly lance you issued,

Took back, so kindly, from my heaving breast.

As I departed, as my lot, swiftly, you stayed, watched, and I

Thought it true, then, that there were no mysteries anymore.






What's left out of


Arachne's charge


Conveniently,



admittedly,


Is that the companion,


Or, more fittingly,


The conspirator of her hubris


Was a machine made by that


Limp God who


To this day,


Even in his age,


fears the outside of


His temnos: that firey,


Imposing Massif, obviously not a


Compensation;


No, daring even


The suggestion is


An inadmissable


Aspersion; but there is a saying about


Rumors.



No, because it is one thing to have


Woven a tale about the hubris of


A woman,


A mightly, verily talented one, surely,


And another to Have it unthinkingly made,


By a thing, a jilted lovers


Kind gift,


The unthinking hand,


The dividend, or yield of


Occult designs


Bespoke to mock the one


To which she owed everything.

What she did understand were not things

That shy'd from light, nor cared to hide 

From beginners mind or learned alike;

So told them, in whisper, but only to

The kind that had it in them to listen:

That past and future, so numbered, 

Went on their ways in lengths that 

That were not so easy to grasp, 

That they had lighted distant shores 

So far, that the sun, in all his glory, 

Could not dare to reach even a grain

With his soft amber hands, as many 

As he had, innumerable, or gaze 

Upon the seas that they banked, 

Darkly, then, those waters known, 

That had no need for the 

pride of vulgar brilliance. 


So she said, sweet blue-eyed winged-angel

Of shade, fine woman of never-ending 

Sleep; And some agreed, saw fit, and 

Continued their way, further, into the 

Pit of the world, tracing names they 

Already thought unfamiliar into the 

Wet slate walls slick with 

Human spirit, happy to think 

That their time was certainly set. 


But some discontent few balked, deplored 

The charity of the fair Lady, said 

That she could never be so wrong as 

Now. 

"How could it be, for I see no course 

That the world could take that would 

Not exhaust it, as a body feels the cool

Rush of sweat and tire even after only a 

Little while at work: and for what I know,

The man's lot, as good as it is, has not

The kind of providence as the Garden."

He was small, hoary with the impression 

Of a great many mornings and evenings, 

Like a babes hair after a while in the daylight, 

And though his words rang through the 

Nave, his eyes betrayed less certainty. 


And so she took the stragglers by 

Their boyish wrists, delicate, worn 

Like stone, and brought them close,

And her breath smelled like Rosemary,

And her skin that the color of olive 

Barks, and her look, my God, 

Should any of us be so lucky,

And her voice, no great difference from 

The smooth rill that lapped the ground, 

Took them to a bed of memory, where she

Said thus:

"Whoever said 

That the course of 

Moment obeyed strictly 

The sense that man has, of 

One second to the next? 

Each thing has occurred 

As many times as

There could be,

And so will

Everything

Else."



In the night,

Ringed-tails and beady eyes,

Little things that flit

To-and-fro,

Holding on to

Dear life

With the clutches of

Curled feet and

Hands just the same;

Chittering scoundrels,

Warbling rascals,

Impossible to catch by

Lamp or swiftness of

Reach,

And they love to let you know,

Not like you could really

Do

Anything with them

Once had:

But that the thought of

Capture entices a game that

Has many willing interests,

Those same speckled hearts that,

Once dawn breaks,

Beat at the pulse of the

Soft rays making their expedience

Across the valley,

Where,

Just before they,

That intractable, marching

Battalion of Helion's Finest Boys

Makes way into the

Boughed boroughs

Of the cloyster of

Conspirators, dewy with

The thought of

Getting away with it

Once again, and

So they do:

Take flight into the

Lavender sky.


It's easy to imagine them,

All fresh and terrified,

Wishing for just another

Respite,

Clapperclawing that

Impossible child of

A pursued woman,

Wishing that wretched

Python had known

To swim,

Suddenly

Coming to find

their flight

Quite a joy;

An impossible feat

Made all the more a racket

By the sheer speed at which

They could pace the

Trying legion of

Red-faced Cossacks,

And they,

The cloaked sorcerers of

Moon-time,

A bow-wielders fry,

Nipping at her heels as she

Barefoots through the

Weeping coppice,

Teary from the long

Day,

Find it quite nice,

And so become

brothers in arms,

All bound up,

Hand in hand,

Until the last footstep of those

Bouncing, brocaded babes

Empties into nothing,

Where they,

Dear devils,

All smiles and good humor,

Again descend,

So carefully,

Into favorite nooks under favorite branches,

Pirouetting into place,

All dance,

grace and gratitude,

To do nothing but sit and

Watch.





You picked the

Biggest of the bunch--

A real jewel of a thing--

And crushed it so it ran red

Through your sweet fingers;

And I thought of nothing.


Those that weep in the sky,

Pins of prickling brightness,

Pity them in having their  

no choice; when man

Rails against his fates,

I think that,

Even if it were possible,

To think as much, to feel

An anger that I wanted,

My God,

What a feeling.



Oh,

Stream of heavenly water, pallid, moon-soft

Mother of man, celestial sire,

From rib of your father, yet clay

All the same; Who could

Maintain, say, that you were

Deceived, tricked, led astray

By soft forked tongue and

Words surely so sweet?

I know not a voice as such:

That to move your kindness

Unwilling, unwitting.

So your secret, dear thing, doe-eyed,

Not mine to tell, but

Know as just, as you did

Then.


A while ago you used a word

Against your brother.

And it Certainly was a good word,

One that was made to declare a kind of

Rule, nameless and foreign, a habit your

Children abhor, yet, perforce,

Wear to the very day.

So I thought a humor, or maybe grace, then,

In finding you there, all alone, your

nose bent across your face, glassy-eyed,

Sinuous featured, shapeshifter,

Hunch-backed, not so tall nor

Mighty, not as memory served

You to mine, no, but the difficulty,

Like things harsher, remember, was forgiven.

For a little red mark, right

In the center of your forehead,

Unmistakable, like a flash in my eye,

Betrayed you, which, for your kind,

Ought to sting, salty, irony, but should

not be unfamiliar with.

You were changed, no doubt,

But unmistakable.

What a turn of chance:

And I did not balk.

Through your affect of Inverness

Heavy-handed petting and strangerly affection,

A good act, a pale and cold

Assumption of forgetting,

Which was funny, because I could have sworn

I didn’t look all that different.

The exchange was brief,

Tense and stingy, with economy

Only brothers have, or did,

And then, like before, you were off,

Breathing down some barfly’s neck;

But with expedience comes the

Sensation that there was more than let on.

Good try.

At the end of the night, then,

leaving you, still sitting there, for who knows

How long, longer,

In a little box of dark wood,

Pints and

Pithy half-memories of always the day before,

Grudging tolerance of townies, tourists, tweakers,

Was no affront, no great pain, because it was always

What you wanted, and it should be so true that

Some men get what they like.



The sunset of my memory bathes nothing in warm empty light.


I saw the night

Sky in your

Eyes,

All

Big-round-

Sweet-warm things

That were heavy with

The teary dew of as many stars as you

Could count, and I know you’re good

At counting.


You put my legs

On top of yours, and pulled

Me

In—

What was I but

Clay in your hands—

Closer than I thought,

Was comfortable with;

And for how long our bodies

Knew each other, I very much

Just didn’t want to feel the pain of

Want, then.


But you had me, and I sat,

Listened:

A year younger in time,

Older than dirt now, that sandy small  Vessel of yours,

Crazy-hair'd-crucible, flecked with

Rose gold, all of you overflowing with

Your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s…

And you said to me, remember:

“You aren’t special.”


I knew you were right. Always have been.

Always will be.


Had he stolen fire enough

The same she did, splitting as

Though a sea: the great crown of

Her father, king of kings,

Had he, like her, had some heart

Like her, with handfuls of heat,

Starlike, ablaze, came to us

To deliver a kind of

blessing; Call it cunning, sure,

Or at least shrewd,

To have never to answer

To the unrepentant hand of that kind of stormy man.

No,

Would he not suffer, bounded

To beak, nor stone, slave to him,

Nor would he be taken with,

Blankly staring into the

Night, of the thought that those little

Devils

Knew already of his great gift,

and that, hard to doubt

In them, invisible, yes

Impossible, something that

Had an appalling splendor

And certainly burned

brighter.


Like the tear striking hot across my cheek,

So was I aspersed to rot, stinking meat,

My God! The earth, the things there,

Putrefying her flesh,

Multiform and manifold; no, my

Fine mind did not afford to forms,  remembrance, nor learning:

The hideous, leggy and small,

And some green, some fleshy,

Draped in furs and other terrible alms, yet

World-weary all the same, assailed by stars

Less caring than inauspicious, I should

Certainly know.


Yes, they have their yokes,

Driven round the coil, flogged, yearning,

Yes, despicable, wretch-like,

Made up of refuse, reworked clay;

Yes, even they to their toil,

Bless them,

(Could you even call it a suffering

If the thing could barely feel, through

Rough appendages, milky eyes, thick,

Swarthy skin?)

But regardless,

Excuse my meanness,

Whatever they call it,

By my heavenly tongue a word the likes

Unheard, certainly they

Won't ever know, as I barely I do,

Even I! In all my highness,

That highness of a

Pain that still, to this day, the

Mere mention of, the vauge impression of

Animal thought, for them,

Strikes fear

Into the skittish hearts

of even their most wont and wan, a

Word that goes like:

Betrayal that you did nothing to,

Could have done nothing to,

Design, deny,

or hope to struggle

Against.



And as he lay on damp ground,

A ghost come round, thinly,

His body touched with rot,

He had a memory, lit like a

Lantern through the weave of

His palm,

Of a weeping mother and her consort,

Though not unfamiliar to him, either,  

And he thought, as water wept from cavern walls,

"Oh, pity them"

And slept forever.


Then he awoke,

Rolled the tombstone from his chamber,

Slow steps out the mouth of

Sleep, his eyes, gentle and raw,

Tear in the catching of the

Sun,

Lighting a Galelian sea, whose

Little tawny bodies moved

Just as wind on similar

Waters.  

And His chest churned with them, at the sight of

Their skinny hands holding the sky,

But he looked closer, doubted, and

saw them have the Earth,

Hurl her at those eagle-eyed galea-bearers,

And despaired;

So he came to them all resolve, bare feet burning the sand,

Climbed high on a ledge, weak and parched,

And gave to them with his sweet low voice:

"My children, forgiveness...'

As a kind stone, flown from the passion and sinewy arm

of a caring man,

came between the Rabbi's eyes

and shore him in two.



We wandered

Out that dank,

Dark mouth of the world,

Her boughed lips of

Honey-leafed ivy,

Bramble,

and Huckleberry,

All dressed in the

Fineness of

Midday sun.


And I had you,

Had you sewn into the

Seam of the song I strung

Carefully, so as to not look back

Once,

At your freshness, sweeter than

Spring,

Which still hung round my

Head like any good laurel of

Great effort

Should.


But somewhere,

In the worry,

Or the excitement of

Having won,

I forgot to keep count.

Forgive me:

I could not bear the thought of

Things that I have

No want

To say.


So, maybe,

You, still shadow,

Silent,

Unspeaking,

Follow me round,

(At least I hope)

With hands not to rough,

Ageless,

And to never falter with

Voice, just for you.

So a few times we have

Come to where

We were, that day, the

First,

And, surely,

the sun

Still looks the

Same.



The boy looked up at her,

With big eyes that were furrowed,

Intentionally, in exaggeration,

To show that he meant business; was

Tough and

Not to be made a friend

Or fool

Of,

All in response to the sweetly rhymed question of

Where did you come from?

And the boy, just before, had said:

"Don't know",

And resolved to show how much he didn't care

By shoving his little face in-between his

Elwbows, arms crossed

On his tiny knees, brown and red

From dirt and bramble-scratch,

Already brought up to his chin that,

Thank God for hiding,

Quivered slightly like the

Oak leaves all twisted up

Just above.


She tossed his hair gently,

Smiled,

And said nothing,

But knew that the boy had

Needed her for quite a long time,

And had already made up her mind

Long before he was born as

This runt

To make sure she did:

And the fear was no more in him,

Something he did not understand,

And she held out a hand that,

I swear,

If you looked close enough,

You could see right through to the

Mossy floor,

And he took it without thinking,

Without regret,

And for a brief moment

Remembered.



He cut his teeth (and

On occasion the odd shin) on

Those little gravel roads that

Took the tall grass fields out

To the city that bloomed in

The hazy West.


The bike was steel, drop-barred

And v-braked, twenty-sixer that

Was a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down,

Riding smooth wasn't in it's

Country vernacular, but between

Clever gear ratios and well-ordering of

Playful tinkering, it certainly was

No slouch. And he would take it

To the crown of the world, out there

A hill, rolling and soft, but to his

Boyishness, already eclipsed by

Dancing flaxen flowers not uncommon

Out there, it was, perhaps,

A grand scary.


Each time was a challenge to outdo the

Memory of the time before, and the

Memory's memory of the time before, the

Little ghost that bowed his head just

The same to help the wind wick over

Him, and faster did they all go, in tow,

A train of spirits all over the mound,

He lost in the sea of impression,

Until one day he was certainly the fastest,

And the bike could do nothing more to

Offer it's way, but it didn't matter,

Because the hope was already in him,

And he resolved that there was no

Greater nobility.


No boy his age ought to be tortured

Sitting under gamble-oaks, trapped in

Contemplation of each passing moment,

Painful to think that each rumination on

The passing was

A waste of another second: but the world,

Bless her, has her toys,

Or trials, experiments, and ought-ness

Means only a bit to the mother of obligation,

So he was tortured, and wept softly

Into starry-night pillowcases in the

Young morning over death that had

Yet to come, and would not come

For very long. But to him

Inevitability was curse enough.


And so he became, though he wished not to,

Begrudgingly taken in the current, pissed

At the growing pains, and took no

Currency from the affording of

Higher pleasures. His frame soon

Came molded to motorcycle fuel tanks,

And the little hill but a warm vagueness,

And the gravel roads interstates of

Painful recollection that he spurned, and so to

Highways, rights of passage

Up and down western slope peaks

And triple digit speeds haunting regardless,

Did he take to wrap the glowing corpse of a

Missed childhood. Not enough, certainly, not

Yet.


A long while later, a whirlwind of

Rearrangement, and the world was

Unrecognizable: man had his

Claim in the stars, and looked well

Beyond to dull, dead rocks that

Promised some sort of raw wealth; hubris

Knows no bounds, and history

Only repeats itself if

You know it.


But he was the lucky few, a

Captain, the product of incredible effort:

Silent nights, loveless afternoons

Crammed in a g-force simulators or

Library cubicles, confines of

Greater aspirations; the bike sought

Dust, and so dust found it, and it

Seemed fitting. But he made it at

a cost useless to think about, and the

Reward was not distance from

Her great trials, but the chance to

Have it all come to a stillness that he

Had craved since the dawn of his

Memory broke over the east.


So there he was,

Captain light-year, alone in a

Thing that resembled no human effort

To ever come before, a star caught in a

Jar of polyceramic-something, whatever,

He wasn't a materials guy, but there he

Was, and the itching in his hands wouldn't

Go, and the ground control encouraged

Restraint, just a little, before full throttle,

But he couldn't help himself:

How could you expect him to, with all

His history? Poor devil, they thought, as

The thing caught up to the light that

Had robbed him, kept him prisoner,


But to him, finally,

Eye to eye,

There it was:

              .




And as the first left its tomb,

Raced towards the sunset at a pace that left the roar of its own

Raging flight breathless behind,

As it kissed the long spindly fingers

Of ticker-tape pulses of enemy sonar,  

And shone star-like on blinking backlit monitors,

Between demands for action and the prickling,

Electric air

of fear,

Nothing was said,

Nothing was done,

And staid that way till the thing

Birthed a sun, the first, in the middle of Brooklyn,

And though he knew no hope for them,

Too late by even the second before it woke,

Maybe he could afford it,

Pay it forward,

By a turned cheek,

And silence,

…



Wandering spirit, son of

Heelers, horse breakers,

Semiphores and rhythm, schooners,

Brig-bared, thatch-dweller-were,

Coventry's youth, boy,

Child of husbanders and

Magistrates, hawk-nosed

Palatines, grey-skinned stone-

speaking dogs,

Oh, young

boy, too much of it, youth,

In that youth, having it stain your

Hound-mouth hung high, great toothy

Smile,

So you had higher humor, and

You had, by memory-played

strings, dull

And amber, caster of shadows, locket-languishing

Haunt of homeland, now known to be

Made to hang from

Telephone poles tacked to

Castle'd buttes colored in tongues

Somewhere new, and men there

Having had their skin made from the

Same red soil as the spells speaking

They to you.


Oh son, hinterland orphan,

To see you now, fondness in

My chest that runs warm,

And know no main could certainly

Rob that sweetly from my heart,

Yours to mine, and have remembrance

Be swept by chilling course of wavering

Heights, but in doubt does my certainty

Become salt-choked, loured

With foam, and so

Do I hesitate, and hold uncertainty a

Sweetness in the tongue that

Tears leap out:

Has your stranger habit robbed you of

Your fonder nature? Better to have it

Bound up tight, no greater surprise to

Savages, but

I look to your

Eyes, and see cloudiness, though they

Kin as those that

Cling tight to the crest of shore

Beaters, here now colored by

A kind of light, and the beaming ray

Of newfound spirit, and though

They as mine, that they have their

Share of fine touch, to you is a kind of

Paleness that draws close,

Arrests,

Reeks

on its breath

candied air, testament to

Those airs, unkempt and dark, turning

Winds that tear cross great seas of

weed, grass and beasts like hummocks of

Muscle and horn, and no,

They to not often take, no,

but willingly had.



Oh, right, I was just here:

Oh, I was just right, here

Oh, here was just I right,

Here, oh, was just right, I,

Here right was just, I, oh,

I, here, oh, was just right,

Just here was right, oh I,

Here just was right, oh, I,

Right here just was, oh I,

Just right was here, oh I,

Right, here, was just, oh I.



Her body was wrapped in plastic by the shore,

And, to wit, I could have sworn that I had just

Been here before: knew that she, at this end the

World would come, rise up, refulgent,

Like that mourn star, or the closer sun, and

Sing something to sing awful, and awfully, and the world, willingly,

would

Cease to be. And so darkness cloud my vision,

And the reeking stench the ocean wrap’d my throat up

In memory that yet to pass,

And a sea bird come and spread its wing darkly,

As that sail hung tattered from yielding fir, just as

I could have sworn I was just here, and her body…


What were once dream,

Subtle, faint and star-shaped

hazily in that of yours,

Of kind,

Disposed as similar, but

Quietly were they, and

As proof by your curled lips,

Were it preffered, did it

Stand to reason that were tender

Wonders, wonder wordless, and

Were it but a moment

No matter, for the dreamer

A good proof that it was,

And so then enough, so then

For gentleness, and furrowed

Brow regardless, that

Were the dream anything else,

Somehow, senselessly, that it

Could be had in the way wanted,

And only the simple matter of

Learning, patience against

Standstill silvers and trembling

Tide, could it

Always be as much.



What surprise he might've known

But didn't; despite a mind

Made of the same stuff that shone

Terribly bright in the further

Kind he looked upon when the

Day to her bed, rosy and overgrown, and

Her boy, with no tanness, no

Evidence of days spent in midday

Toil, no freckle or kiss of vulgar color,

Sable in the sky as he is, sit still and

Scowl at the rougher type, those things

Made to be bound to the stinking

Soil of sows and heifers and sires,

Yes, of the same type that flickering

Flame of candle-lit waking, sublime

Sense, but of a proportion of smaller part

Than even the dankest corner of

The cobwebby thoughts of unsympathetic

Majestry, whose darkness, effortlessly, out shown any variety of that

Triumphant genius known as willingness.


No, nothing as much could've been had by

That tight frock of dark curl and skin giving

And smooth to be taken and made to

Bear by waters kind and flowing but

Certainly having, the thought that as he,

Adam, black mother and the still kind hour of the glossy reign of that diminutive sun, stood before

What assumed his familiarity, form not

Unlike ten fingers, and legs like the

Height of him to the hip, and wings all

Round to prefigure a sort of expectation,  

That the thing that had brightness in him

To outdo the midday lady of giving,

Could have had envy as he did, garden

Keeper, a sanguine machine that breathed hotness and deference, and the succor

Of flower, fruit, vine, bower, and what this

Little man may not have had as those

More deserving did he make up for in

A kind of care, a word that to dare to

Speak an aspersion even in contemplation,

The thing that made of the morning

Star tears to run stinging and burn like iron on skin

From fire quickly to brand his

Fair cheek.



She was beautiful, and

Had many names from many

Kinds of people, all different and

Sweet, loving and fair in

Her ways: For as

Many to have her in mind

So did she recall faces, and

Forms, all as gracious as

Any before. But who

Would have guessed that

The kindness of her lot,

Someone afforded such

Blessing to be likeness to

Great variety, diffuse light

Herself shone upon and

reflected a world of real good-

ness, my God, what a feeling:

But who could have thought,

Certainly not I, nor you, or

Us, that to be it all is a kind

Of curse against being

Anything in particular?



Seems that the big fella forgot

That to afford choice,

Unparalled will, or parallel

To tendencies higher than

Even fanciful aspirations,

Is to find them accepting,

Having,

The babes,

Their swollen bellies

of a suffering

Supper that only

Begets itself,

And to dress themselves in

Malaria, flies, often

Grey, calloused eyes, and the

Thought, to

Have that be their

Preferred lot, of

Degree from

Adam and his

Poor sire, seems

A little

Mean.



Their language, once of

Streams and brooks and elms that

Hurried to the smooth breast of their

Little valleys, green and pretty, well

Manicured, and scenes of sunsets

And sunrises, now framed in some

Stuffy museum, now

Remembered, now only as those

Painted and remembered, but once

Where they had no other choice to

Be, not memory yet, but the place where

Their labor and toil were yet to be the

Nostalgia of a kind of noble mind

That had never known the

Postholing mud, nor the unquestionable

God in the flaxen hair of a great

Sleeping girl in the breeze,

Now words that had a newness to them,

The same words, the same specie of

Stone made to talk of great men and

Greater deeds, clanwiseness and

Kinhood, now silly and spoken in ways

Made to slur.



The weight of their hearts were weighed

And found to be much lighter: little wild

Beasts, not much of a surprise that the

Light of a field mouse to be proportional,

Though no less fine and noble a kind of

Kiss of reminding.


So was The Thought, then, that,

to the little ones,

what with their according divinity,

no less of Favor but lower by virtue,

closer to the soft breath of her heart,

so had their own kind of holiness.

Though too little too late was it known that

for them this garden of Rest was their higher paradise,

the willing work of a million billion Souls singing in step to

keep it as much, and

That they aspired to no greater heaven as

Those yoked souls cairned in clay did, who

Knew of a dim memory of Repose, and no

Toil, choice, or death, things the little ones

Did not mind nor fear, because they were content,

Those grateful ones, for their lot, and of humor,

Chose no foul temper.

This is what is meant by the meek shall inherit

I guess what is left.


And as man's son did kill death, sweetly, so did they,

but as though with kindness even

Greater than the greatest. They knew no fear,

And sought no higher court, no greater

Paradise, but did that yoked soul of

Higher reason and choice and toil,

Lacking the arms of all other angels,  

But not their wit, took the deathless clay

And made it bend, unyielding and now unfamiliar,

towards the stars in a

Manner not unfamiliar to their Aspiration?



For only the joy of want to be

The enduring sturdiness of

Great simplicity,

So it was: a dreamer of

Broad leaves, and great

Height, blueness and bark, and the

Little things all around

That lived on it, and made

It, the dreamer, a home, of

Kindred spirits: They gratefully

To be in habit of a

Steady sleeper returned the

Favor by

Certainly being in waking

The gift of a memory that

Never faded.


And so each

Dream there was only the want

To be, and there it was being,

And never did the joy go

Anywhere else, nor

Did they, for a similar

Wont,  so they the

Tree remained, and would

So long as the joy was had.