Meditation

Hating, as you do, the horror
and catastrophe and vast
insidiously virulent insemination
of the shadow – ineradicably
dangerously here – from which
you can have had no notion of
a respite but to flee it, and in secret

fearfully plan how to slaughter it –
conspire with your familiars –
spouses, cousins, siblings, sons
and daughters – whose existence
seems as badly threatened by
the thing as yours – it can’t be
too surprising that what pours into

the rest of life for you is similarly
tainted: drop of paint in milk:
inevitable toxin: always some
faint tincture of the killing poison
in your water and your air:
but oh! – poor friendless creature
and your barely beating arid heart:

there are features of the whole
I swear your soul longs to impart:
no need to tell you what they are:
you know. Look around you
for their evanescent glow. Dare
to love them when they come:
care about them when they go.


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