Commission
So poets and philosophers erudite
And sensuous, compelled to win or own
Probe the anonymity of themselves
The strange polarity of self and being ...
And bequeathed me a legacy of questions
That I have condensed, and condensed
Until empty of my own exaltation and pretense
I probe desperately:
What is it, this feeling, this gift, this thing
This suddeness of becoming
What is love?
How can you not seeing me know me
And know me without our meeting?
And I am foolish
Against the experience of the blind
Who may touch
And beholding by the fingers tangible grasp
Feel the leaping heart and surrender.
And of mute men who heard not nor spoke
But in the surprise of rapture and rhapsody
Froze sterile in the sun.
We have no sense impediment
So hang out like clothes on a line
The interogating argument
What is love?
And shall I only know by faith
The impotence of flesh
To which the heart must compensate?
I would exult
So that man may mortal die
And love immortal lives
Your consolement forever.
|