Some Question’s Spirit

Long ago you breast-fed the child;
long ago you held the hand of the child
and walked long with him along
the long winding street you did,
as though summer, in light of you’s
booming,
blooming
its blaze of grasses – wide awake –
in light of you…
Though the child by and by blazed, unfurled,
falling in love, making friends and working
on the opposite side of the world,
the world that was you was wider still,
water and air to his very will.

For a week now he’s been sitting
on the worn-down porch, quietly watching…
Within the space of “Is this real? Unreal?”,
wherein dejection sometimes shades
into a strange and subtle joy,
some question’s spirit puts on the dress
of the street’s silence steeped in night
and then of the dawn dappled
with feathered voices of delight.

Childlike he wonders: Are you walking now
with summer, holding summer’s hand now?
Do you breast-feed spring?
Being no more,
you’re with the world, within the world
still more…
You live on –
Some question’s spirit suffusing the world…

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