I’ll stumble up and take hold
of starlit dust and hold,
hold with vigor the mighty
flames of rite.
I’ll bend my knee for the fight.

I need not tell you of my plight
I need not tell you of my blight
I need not tell you of my night.

There are too many failings,
too many wantings to fill me up.

I am bottomless;
I am full
and cannot be filled.

My emptiness is full and without.

I cannot reason why.
I cannot spy into the glass
to see and correct my past.
Would that I could,
with hindsight, never to have set
foot near the pit,
never to have dared to spit.
For my strength, it flies,
it flies like lightening from the sky —
furious, pitiless, and hot.

Then I am not.

It is not that I cease to be.
It is not that I cease to reason.
It is not that I cease to have flesh and soul.
It is that I cease to look.
I cease to remember the price paid.
I cease to recall. I cease to call.

And the gilded calf, the flowered staff, and
the manna he did breathe
should be carved into me.
They should, by God, leave me with a mark.
There should be something,
There should be something,
There should be something
left upon this ark.

© rl busséll 2018 – All rights reserved.