Standing inside my window,
I overlook the sea,
Its wild distant waves,
Are scattered with spray and rime
While rain squalls bluster,
Whip the coastal scrub,
And beat against the window,
Shaking it before me.

This is clarity,
Coldly far-sighted and real.
There is nothing to shield me
From the bleakness outside,
Of cold wind and rain,
But a shaking window pane.

And I am in and out,
Of a related,
Experience of my mind,
An inner clarity,
Of certain feelings,
Where my own inner landscape
Is just as cold and wild,
Where in great moments,
Long and expansive enough
For a lone eagle's flight,
Across a deep vast,
There opens the emptiness
Of an unremitting view
That expands forever,
Across a shadowless plain
Of unfeatured freedom,
Depriving my limbs
Of knowing where to take me,
For with such clarity,
Potency leaves me,
And everything approaches
An equalised tension,
Color dissolving,
In the unforgiving light
Into clear and starker,
Hues of black and white.

At such confronting moments
Of intensified light,
I want sfumato,
Where illusion emerges
And magical stillness
Of poetic dreams,
A satyr seems to appear,
From dark forest shadows,
Or was it a dream?
Just flickering light and shade?

In art's uncertainties,
My soul gains relief,
Softened by chiaroscuro,
From which deep shadow
Imagination rises to
Soften and obscure,
To blur the harsh edges
Of reality,
Removing the objective
Towards much safer realms
Of a personal
World of subjectivity,
Sensation becoming
Perception in which
The natural is surpassed,
Becomes the poetic,
The spiritual,
And so the everyday world
Then becomes enchanted,
Synonymous with
The illusionary world
Of art's poetic forms,
The colours of it,
All its singing harmonies,
All its sublime beauties,
That work together,
To form a poetic whole.

But behind this window pane,
I am bleak and dismal,
Stripped of the comfort
Of heart-warming illusion,
And bleakness clings to me
Like a cold wet shirt,
Exposing my nakedness,
The cruelly torn edges
Of a soul emptied
Of all joy and all beauty,
My soul, that part of me
Of which I was sure,
And was my certain refuge
From all the furrowed brows
Of the harried world
From which I come to this place.

Is this bleak journey my path?
The one that will lead me
Back to my own self?
That beautiful part of me
I somehow lost touch with
So long ago now.
Where can I hope to find it,
Along this stony path,
This lonely drear place?
Yet, am I truly alone?
For did you not promise
You would be with me,
My companion on this path?
That thought has sustained me,
But you are not here!
Was it just your faithless words?

And now, after this longing
For embracing shadows,
To comfort my soul,
The weather has closed right down,
And comes in gloomily,
Limiting visibility,
And now the light is poor,
And a swirling rain-storm
Makes the house shudder,
Lashing the window near me,
And flying off the roof,
In clouds of cold spray.

Thank you, Higher Beings all,
For your keen diligence
In sending to me
These clouds of cold spray and rime.
But, instead of the angst
And uncertainty
Of this cursed clarity,
Another squall of rain
Was not in my mind…

You knew what I had in mind.