The Isles
Your reason is a snowdrift-reason,
icy in and out of season,
cold and sharded frost with flakes,
a floe no grace nor fervor wakes --
but what of reason's South Sea isles,
flush and warm with solar smiles?
Golden-hearted breeze-winds sway
to charge the night and warm the day
as, by the currents warm and clear,
the joys go dancing without fear
and, on the beach-sand wet and fair,
a sunrise gilds the scented air.
Dream
The air is hot and dry,
obscured by storms of dust.
Unending realms of sand
parch with fatal thirst.
Yet even on this desert planet
water can be found:
dew in secret places,
pools by wind-worn rocks.
I dreamed.
This desert was a beach.
Mist was in the air.
Great waves of philosophy
broke against the shore.
Epiphany
I heard the preacher speaking,
and of miracles I heard,
the wine of revelation
from the water of our words.
I heard of men and women
in humility of ways
transfigured to the glory
of the Ancient One of Days
(first river-bathed and lustral
in the waters of the earth,
then drunken, full of Spirit,
with the Wine of heaven's birth),
of wisdom-seeking sages
who had sought the Good by star
and found it held by mother
where the Jewish peoples are,
the True in swaddled clothing --
thus their wise philosophy
was turned, like wedding-water,
to that wine, epiphany.
