My love must be as free 
    As is the eagle’s wing, 
Hovering o’er land and sea 
    And everything 

I must not dim my eye 
    In thy saloon, 
I must not leave my sky 
    And nightly moon 

Be not the fowler’s net 
    Which stays my flight, 
And craftily is set 
    T’ allure the sight

But be the favoring gale 
    That bears me on, 
And still doth fill my sail 
    When thou art gone 

I cannot leave my sky 
    For thy caprice, 
True love would soar as high 
    As heaven is 

The eagle would not brook 
    Her mate thus won, 
Who trained his eye to look 
    Beneath the sun

My heart leaps up when I behold 

   A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began; 

So is it now I am a man; 

So be it when I shall grow old, 

   Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

 

Does the heart grieve on,
After its grief is gone
Like a slow ship moving
Across its own oblivion?

Heart! Heart! Do you not know
That I have conquered pain,
Have parted from my woe?
That my proud feet have found their path again,
After the pathless heights-long after-
And that my hands have learned to bless
Their overflowing emptiness,
My lips grown reconciled to laughter?

O laggard of dead roads,
O heart that will not heal nor break
Nor yet forget!
Tell me, whose tears are these
That greet me as I wake?
Why is my pillow wet?

Red rebel, is it you
That lifted this wild dew
Like banners from my arid dreams,
That roused this ember
From exiled ashes,
Calling me to remember?

Speak, is it you that wept
Upon my pillow while I slept?

Does the heart then grieve on,
After its grief is gone,
A treasure ship that journeys
Across its own oblivion?

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
    Dark like me—
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
    Black like me.

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

^{“When you are trapped in a nightmare, your motivation to awaken will be so much greater than that of someone caught up in a relatively pleasant dream.”
—Eckhart Tolle}

When I realized the storm
was inevitable, I made it
my medicine.

Took two snowflakes
on the tongue in the morning,
two snowflakes on the tongue
by noon.

There were no side effects.
Only sound effects. Reverb
added to my lifespan,
an echo that asked—

What part of your life’s record is skipping?
What wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can
to break out of that groove?

By nighttime, I was intimate
with the difference
between tying my laces
and tuning the string section

of my shoes, made a symphony of walking
away from everything that did not
want my life to sing.

Felt a love for myself so consistent
metronomes tried to copyright my heartbeat.

Finally understood I am the conductor
of my own life, and will be even after I die.
I, like the trees, will decide what I become:

Porch swing? Church pew?
An envelope that must be licked to be closed?
Kinky choice, but I didn’t close.

I opened and opened
until I could imagine that the pain
was the sensation of my spirit
not breaking,

that my mind was a parachute
that could always open
in time,

that I could wear my heart
on my sleeve and never grow
out of that shirt.

That every falling leaf is a tiny kite
with a string too small to see, held
by the part of me in charge
of making beauty
out of grief.