Shining in the shadows various
Of the twilight restful, rose,
Full of the immanent expression, say
Find you peace in this enfolding
Recrudence of the making
At the quiet immolation
In the garden.

But, rose fled from worm-rot,
Rapid in the cold winds
Cunning in the frost's grip
Spread your profusion
Glow for an evening
Waking the senses
Urgent as perfume.

And beholder, garden-grafted.
Take the rose and scatter
The petals frivolous, penetrate
The heart-beat of beauty with a killing.
So you will make this darkening death
Perpetuation of the rose's glory.

W.H.O.

*

To D ....

Spasms of wind whip the rain down the valleys
Drive the ice-spars unerringly through my body;
Above, on the left, houses jag the skyline
And beyond, I imagine, there's another skyline
And not unwelcome.

She is tired, and I am tired
Together we could be tired,
Conjunctionally.

But my inner warmth is diffused
And a prey to the incidental attack Of the wind,
Whose sound would seem, heightened accompaniment
To the warmth of dual fusion;
But now chill arrows pierce my heart
And we are two skylines apart.

Sitting in this dull conforming sand.
Strength to move dried up through generations
And vision blurred,
I wait and watch the sand cover my legs.

At times I have tried to move—
A voice said "Beauty"
I heard a trumpet note breathe "Life"
A dim face seemed goodness
And some printed words glowed truth.
Each time I walked a little way towards
Where I thought they were,
But the voice was silent and the face turned away.

Odyssey of Being

Creep from your cradled callowness,
gaze with your infant eyes agape
at adult bearing only to be aped;
in new adventure only to be tried
project your sapling self.

Venture out hesitant with sidling steps;
emboldened, take the world up in your hands.
Heft it and tap it, learn its inner ways.
drink from its hollow depths unsatisfied.
Then cast the gourd away.

Go out to set the joint of time,
with ready logic knock the globe askew;
crumble, its tables stone, its home-made gods,
and then with retrospective smile indulge the radical.

Lulled in the corner of senility
live in your imagery, transcend your wizened shell;
then to the tune of sycophantic hums
and sty subservience to aged tyrrany,
slip in the hollow palm of death.

—G. H. Datson