When I was spongy
soft and daisy yellow, my father poured
forth with piety his cleansing love
for god and country, and he poured
it into poor little porous me.

It was a sop I tried to hold
but just as gold wings go
and clay feet come,
so my faith in blindness was replaced
by a bookish seeking.

The small wrings and smaller
squeezes of his uneven hands
told me god wasn’t 'man enough,
and any bounded place was too cramped
a space for my odd inklings.

Then I found this upon the further
side of knowing: Nature lives and dies not
in our world alone,
but there’s a universe to breed
and spoil with my loving’s expansion.

It’s always cycling...
cycling before me...
cycling through me...
cycling past me...
cycling in spite of me.

Ever never blinks
and no quill’s ink tallies
those woes and wants
played out on the twinkling
stage of our weakling moments.

Outside the familiar
rhythms of my childish loves,
I’m left
pledging to do no heavenly harm
as I spread wide these arms
so inadequate for embracing the vast
elliptical clouds of intermingling
light and dust,
and in flying I’ll fall toward
but not reach
the core of my sunny belief.