Grasping Light

Just downstream from that dark place,

Where last beats fell and waters churned

A man looked down upon his face...

In reverie, his thoughts did turn:

To follow the river is to follow the arc

It does not drift, it does not wait

Find its course with limb and mind

There walks a man;

There runs his fate

To follow the river is to follow the thread

It does not lie, it does not leave

Drowning stones there as he does,

He comes to think;

He comes to breathe

Something of that ember lives!

He feels it bide, he feels it wake

Looking out, but at itself,

As if to speak;

As if to make

His vision forming, flowing now

In tumbling verse, in melting song

Crafting words there as he does

They echo out,

They echo on:

"But a vessel, alive,

For a time, I would thrive,

That was all,

Nothing more lay below it...

But a vessel, adrift,

Not a theft, nor a gift,

That was all –

But a pulse, but a poet"

To drink from the river is to meet with the arc

And drink until quenched

The man did

But a vessel, adrift,

Not a theft, nor a gift,

That was all –

But a pulse