the traveler makes song
heard in many places, rising,
ending like tree top disappearing
into low living cloud.

he knows our uncertainty,
clothed in the
vain gold authority
of hard men,
bent as the tree
and harder yet to please.

i have dined with the traveler
many times.  
at opulent table sitting
foreign and small.
in the bowels
of the wood where his
song rang the sweetest.
in the tempest of a kitchen
table, a sudden swift storm.

i struggle with the lyric
of his song, so vast, so simple.
in language sharp and clean,
that speaks to us this one true
thing:

love only; the you as the i
and that which is above all else.