Imagination truth
A singular and a waste treatment plant
Like god and a crawling ant
Distant and touching at the same time.
It comes to soberly pass
In a village in a mountain pass
All stones and stars do align.
For just past the sewage plant
And a single crawling ant
A walker starts his ascent.
Not fifty yards away
Time begins to sway
As does the walker’s intent.
Neither near nor far
Near as a stone and a star
The world exposes its bent.
For standing at a bend
In what seems to be pretend
A young woman puts the lie to earthly beauty.
Through mists that swirl
Magic hair both straight and curl,
Her whole expressible only mutely.
The woman and the traveler
A he and a her
Introduced through their hearts and minds.
With both time and kind
Reckoning ,” Never the silence mind,
Everything is so perfect fine.”
One more step does he take
And his world begins to shake
As does his view of the ineffable.
Less than another step more
In a way he can’t ignore
The view becomes the effable.
For a screw has turned
And her image is burned
Replaced by wood and wire.
He seeks refuge in night’s sleep
Which brings the deepest weep
And all around the hottest fire.
His loss is so great
He swears he can’t tolerate
The reliving of that pain.
“I am not such a fool
And I am not so cruel
To ever walk that path again.”
But in the way of man
Who embraces self damn
As though a mother’s saving milk,
Next morning’s light
Finds him at yesterday’s site
Embracing it like the finest silk.
His effort doesn’t disappoint
For the universe does anoint
With again the gift of the lie to earthly beauty.
But this time with one thing more
Exactly what he’d hoped for
Her words and not merely mutely.
Her words they say,
“We’ve both been led this way
By of what I surely know not.”
But I am surely a her
And you are surely a sir
And that is surely much more than a lot.”
“I’m as long as the universe is far
And as short as you are,”
Says her voice traveling down the hill,
“And your imagination speaks truth
As the gun of John Wilkes Booth
You’re not wanting for the required skill.”
The gift she could give him
The gift he could win
Requires the element of distance.
For her presence is strong,
The whole universe long,
But has this single insistence.
“If you come one bit closer
I’ll collapse to a post sir
With wire for legs and arms.
But if you keep this distance
Then the single insistence
Gives you all of my charms.”
Each tine you return here
You’ll return to what is most dear
And each time will be as the first.
Stones and stars will flood your heart
And life will play you every part
And deny you not slake and thirst.
He agrees and they depart
As she says, with beauty’s art,
“No sense to alter our composition.
You’ll only see me as I be
With our present geometry
And no trick of energy can alter this proposition.
For any change that you make
In the whole universe’s take
Will only show metal wire and wooden post
And will remove from your air
No matter how gentle your care
All that you want the most.”
Much time has passed,
By now he no longer asks.
As words come to him while silently praying.
They come from on high
And come from nearby,
The words, “It goes without saying.”