The Song beside the Door Ajar

Poemata LX

Without walls, doors have no meaning

There is a door in the wall over there;
And it leads to a meandering way--
Where image on image without care
Follows through both night and day;
  Some find this door, I came to believe
  In themselves, if to open their truth
  Was all that art from them could receive
  Was art itself, and in our ruth
What can we say? Shall we traduce
Belief so firmly held that those
Follow it gladly, and so produce
Things like themselves- ah, God knows?

  But once I said, "seize that thought--!"
  For emotion is but thought without words
  Man thinks and is, or thinks and ought
  Ought to take captive all thinking affords;
Did inspiration thus disappear --?
As if foolish man could talent destroy
By bridling it, by teaching it fear?
It is to laugh, to chagrin; to cloy.
  But then all things are two things instead
  The substance & form, the light & the way
  The finger & moon, the body & head
  The I & the thou; the sun & the day.

It is not enough to open this door
Nor to walk such a way as may seem
To go on and on, as evermore
Continues your ever unfolding dream;
  Where rhymes form the thoughts & rhythms their answers
  "I" is not needed nor has aught to say
  And has nothing to add to the expanses
  Of that meandering, untraceable way--
In the end I am here to be just a witness
And send my call through the darkening air
Come dusk! Come fog! & through its thickness
There is a door in the wall over there.