Whirlwind

©  2016 Steve King

All rights reserved

These nights are never empty;

There will be a beat

to mark the waxing moment,

a drumming note to fill

each dreaming space.

But I will never know

if I am hearing or intoning,

listener or speaker;

or if the moment falls an idle thing,

tolling out the faint remains

of conscience staking claim.

I cannot say how any dream is held,

nor how it disappears,

nor whence it springs to hover briefly near:

always some unseen vantage,

where one may not follow.

But its pull is always felt,

and whispers well

of things that I should know,

or would have done,

or might desire,

just so.

Unmetered psalms of my own brief,

echo through the reflections—

all moments that suffice to gather

such a soul as mine.

And all the well-worn hopes remain

that one day they shall bring

a kind of peace.

Were I the sainted kind

I might make orisons of these,

curry spirits with incense,

beatitudes and hope,

even that singular one

to banish every doubt.

But the moment brooks no prayer,

and I must rightly stretch the word

to feel akin to any kind of grace.

I understand:  not every moment needs a name,

that triumph rarely may sustain,

that laughter clings but briefly to the air,

while seas of tears do nourish our domain.

And every moment shall renew.

Even love,

and every friend,

may only for a time be true.

The quotidian march

upon this spinning place puzzles:

every start and end will seem the same.

A humbling passage to embrace,

but should it measure happiness or care,

I know that I shall always march again.

Alas there are no ready gods to blame,

though unseen voices gather near;

though whirlwinds clamor at each turn,

to shout me down,

but never to explain.

A new poem for Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads
http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/