A poem

Whene’re I find my love awaning

Whene’re I find my love awaning

by limits plac’d for noble cause,

affections caution quarantining

lest favor’d charms shou’d be my loss,

then one I ought not love appears

who outward shines a beauty strange,

that blinds my vision of my fears

and narrows focus’ broader range

of surface loves and surface hates

to single points’ infinity

and gathers my distended states

to delta function’s unity.

Who frees me from my captur’d mind

which for life’s sake so hides from life?

Cou’d my subconscious be so kind,

who oft’ elicits so much strife?

Or might the world create such love,

the world herself through general laws,

the sea below, the sky above?

I doubt that she cou’d be the cause

who knows not love nor love displays.

Tho’ in her way she is sublime,

she seems unlike the source of grace

which masters even savage time;

for earth herself to time shall fall

and stars and suns will death take hold.

This frightful time that ruins all

can make to lead the finest gold.

Perhaps companions through this land

have learnt the tricks and tools of fate

and wisely schemed and jointly planned

a homeland we ourselves create;

but they, like I, with self-love’s hate

despair this life each separately

and prudently let love abate;

so when they join communally

they find attending growing wealth

a shadow fear, a lurking thief

who darkens love with coward’s stealth

’til ev’ry gift be made a grief.

“Not I, not I,” each worldly thing

replies in turn as each I ask,

but praises all the all will sing

to Love Who love has set our task.

May 14, 2009