For how entirely mortal is the Love I bear for you .
I bring it forward into the full fragrant
flare, the rosy effulgence of a perishing tree .
As in Oz or in fairyland, the fruits of that
arbor are ever changing.
All the flowering spectors of my childhood and manhood
come into and fade into that presence,
perilous throughout, essential throughout
-apple, cherry, plum-de·ep purple
as night and as sweet-quince and pear–
we know they are there all ready,
in each ring, each year
they belong
to
the tree's inner preparing.
For how entirely a door has been flung open in me
long prepared!
How each season of the year, a thief,
goes in and goes out,
bearing transgressions of tastes and odors,
traces of me lost,
imprints of thee, stolen hours,
stored among my secrets.
*
Stand by me, you wingd light and
dark ascendant!
Attend me, here, falling!
*
For I am falling out into that Nature of Me
that includes the Cosmos it believes in
as if
It
were the smallest thing, an all but invisible
seed in the cloud of these seeds scatterd,
ever emerging from belief beyond belief.
I shall never return into my Self;
that Self passes out of Eternity, incidental!
