It is a brittle thing, like an old
twig
or
a dried leaf pressed under museum glass.
The
qualification for quintessence,
the
seer’s gaze into the heart of heart,
is
a sapling that must know the hurricane
and
feel the bruise of wind gods it cannot see.
The
cost of slipping through the tent flap of eternity
is
first love—the one untimely ripped—
that
is lost to too few years round the sun.
Slings
and arrows, stings to the marrow—
that
is the price of admission to life
for
the soul that is hiding for a time
inside
fleeting flesh made from a random rib.
Such
is the tilling of springtime soil
and
loss in a paradise too early born.
But
open the joy-stained gate
and
let new rivers rage and roar.
Set
free the monk and grant love to the whore.
Throw
with abandon a flock of birds
into
the air with orisons and holy charms,
for
these troubadours stayed in the nest of yearning,
endured
gravity in the time of youthful learning.
Glory
circles round to find itself again
as
Wordsworth discovers splendor in the grass
and
takes up immortality with his pen.
This
is how we step onto mandala spin
to
find membership in the tribe of women and of men.
~William Hammett
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