Poet At Forty

Through an oaken door
Down a corridor
I marvel at the children’s play
So animated and cruel.

The poet too observes with his pale, innocent eye.

I come to a noisy hall and open the second door
To a spacious room
Full of Summer light
A pine desk in disarray
With lined pages
And crumpled sheets scratched with choppy verse
And notice the poet dejected and howling from the corner of my eye.

The third door arrives after strange halls and hidden mazes
With guides in vast archive of
Manuscripts of the living and dead,
The poet stands silently filing papers
Like a man who polishes stones
Editing these Collected works
Scarcely noticing my coming or going…

Banquets and dissolution follow
Forgetfulness, lust and bitter dejection;
At last I come to the fourth door
And crack open to find an accomplished poet of some reknown
And swell to hear his voice:

“I stand in wonder before little things---
Breezes in the late evening branches
Bouquets for the memory
From sundrenched vaults of yellow---
Dreams that Summer’s heavy arm plows under.

I toss these scraps of paper to the ditch
With breach of regulation, well considered answer,
With definition, and vow,”
His word trails along the luminous orchard
To filter Autumn’s cider
Into a glass of Wonder.

Wonder before little things---
Ash and burning paper
Dissolving minute traces of Spring
Coiling near the park bench
Pastel ribbons flitter and flow away
On November’s winding, muddy water.

Spilling,
the deep green liquid
Holds fast to the cool frosted soil
The sun paints the blue
With cloudy white brushes.

No longer swayed in storming majesties,
The poet at forty is captive
To ribbons, twigs,
to Triune clover sustaining
Inspiration’s pool echoes tales
Of valiant days into richer speech.

Opening an oaken door,
Passing through an endless corridor
I wander down the little days
Of my sterile infancy
Up through the years of filtered sunlight,
Through the trees,
The globe spinning well on her course,
Past rocks and hills of time
And such stillness
That deep as a crystal lake is mute,

On and on
Into the dense hall of liquid music
I come at last to the banquet
Her diamond eyes and golden dress
The candlelight plays upon
Her human form at last molded into art.

I search receding figures
In a tall mirror.
An elegant table is
Set with crystal and a candelabra.
Evening guests linger
In the eery sumptuous cool.
Summer afternoon slides
Away on a rippling breeze
And a diaphanous curtain.

Carnival absorption
Swirls along the corridor
Spinning, gazing wild-eyed into the mirror
Struggling to stand.
The pulsing ringing in my ear
Drifting deep in murky thoughts
Then blank void---the funnel---
Walking into startled music
Parched and thirsting
Counterwheeling
Throwing up.

I stop to gaze upon my new creation
With wide eyes
Gone are the months of drunkenness and chaos,
Clutterered fields and ruined halls
Months of ignorance cease to murmur in their drunken rabble.

It is silent in the cold vault
Save for the drip-dropping water
Which dull and rhythmically falls.

Years before I searched in such depths for music
Now dead to me.
What Orpheus would wake the sleeping
And give such song to my inner ear?
Darkness lords over
“I left you standing deaf
years ago.
And there---there is the madness you sought---
Go and take it!”
A chained figure stunned me---

“Yes, not all the mad are as lucky---
And this is the wine cellar
Welcome back!”

“Surprised, you are surprised!
Had not thought…
How old?”
“Ah, yes 40.
Naturally, and now
only now
have you found your way back.”