Original digital image copyright
Davison Art Center
Wesleyan University
prior permission from the DAC required for any subsequent use.

II.
When David saw Bath-sheba
         he did not think
         of god.
When my father built towers,
         tunnels
         bridges
He did not think of god.
When sedge relinquished
Its living matter
When clatters of thunder
         surrendered to rain --
God was there, peering into pain.
Adjacent to me -
         my will in wonder.
The power binding
         connecting these lines
         and whirls,
         measures fields.
It wildly surpasses
         spiced almond trees
         Eleusinian mysteries -
It divines fervent existence.
We cannot exhaust
Inexhaustible steam.

We are platelayers.
We repair the railway rails -
         turning, turning round spiral ridges
                  of thread-screws.
We retrieve unheard of possibilities.
We angle.
We protract and we jaw entangled --
Through the eye of the Surveyor’s level
We are ever-mindful of raking day’s reprieve.

III.
Here’s to life -
         not survival
Here’s to freedom -
         not complacency
To choice within destiny
To instinct without ego
To rents and stains
To marbled halls –
All, all, all.. all
To Eos and the Plough
To Shiva and Shakti
The mewling primal egg
Our transparent density.
(How our common tongue is worn,
Bundled in sheaves of barleycorn.)
Over and over the same inclusions
Stopped by the moving picture
         which does not move,
But is thrown in rapid succession
Upon the Screen -
Eternally congealed -
Statically sealed.
Bewildering energy melts down
         all considerations…
Life is
A matter
A matter of time.
It is not
         position
         space
It is change
It is fluid persistent creation
It is not
         redistribution
         of matter
         of motion
         as if some solid concept
Yesterday’s news slated
         for the recycle bin
Is not the state we are in.
Mind - not material matter
Action - not passivity
Time - not boundless space
Exist above mechanisms functionary.
Thought - vague nebula..
It is our luminous nucleus
Where we labor in the sub-soil
         restoring
         regenerating
         growing
Knowing we mold our wills
         our desires in design
         against the undertow…
Here’s to One Life -
May it be Time’s ever-lasting tableau.