There am I in a crypt of cosmic secrets,
Barred from any retreat; beyond the pathways
Always turning, and always choosing; finding
Wondrous feeling, but still I wander through the
Avenues with the mist of time obscuring
Every way. Indeterminate horizon
Leaving me with the here and now, enough to
See, enough to decide among the tasks at
Hand: enshrouded by possibilities and
Circumstances that sometimes I'm obliged to
Bow my head to the floor for. Sometimes storming,
Raging, echoes of mania distort the
Senses; bleak fog descends upon the mind's eye.
Biding time as though convalescent, I've been
Trapped before in the suffering and blindness
That depressive anxiety demands with
Winds of changeless insanity to whip the
Spirit into dejection, fear to crush the
Agency of each day. Compulsion of a
Phobia, a corruption of the Will from
Action to an Avoidance Need; imposing
Terror fixed in the deepest mind, beyond the
Reach of consciousness menacing, controls the
Mind and body by instinct. Time unfurls in
Inconceivable ways. All flight and yet the
Day's escape is reversed; the threat remains to
Steal tomorrow by painting days as months and
So elongating panic that the days will
Smear together as one conglomerated
Misery. And the mass of worry will feel
Just like lying entrapped in mental bondage.
Outward seeps the miasma, blanketing all
Vistas, giving deceptively impressions
That it's permanent; but the spirit can be
Called inviolate–providence reserves the
Wherewithal to reverse misfortune, even
Seeming permanence dissipates upon a
Windfall meeting. A gust can blow away the
Fog, and fate that was brutal soften by a
Chance encounter with love, a smile from one who
Never could have before so earnestly be
Looked for: aided, unknowingly at first, by
Soil unnoticed in richness, soul unnoticed
In the depth of its kindness; friendship growing
Into intimate bond, and care the motive
Dedication empowering a soul to
Live with luster, take hold of fortitude to
Walk a bit more assured with strengthened spirits.
I was walking throughout intoxicating
Clouds of blinding directionlessness, stumbling
Really, crawling and crouched when light suffused the
Cavern's blanket and for a moment brilliance
Struck me; dazzling! A beacon overwhelming
Me, refracting the wisps' illumination
Into blindness unknown before: a vista
Gleaming only a second, gone, but still the
Landscape glows for a while, the load feels lighter,
I can see a bit further out ahead, what's
More I want to. Epiphany is what it
Felt like, only the clarity was partial,
Gradual, and at some times tidal, ebbing
Back away from my sight; but ever since, a
Spark has lit the enshrouding gloom from time to
Time. I walk alongside you–likewise fearful,
Just like me a confused itinerant here
Walking deep in the promenade, in dreamlike
Sight confounded in hazy nightmare logic:
Journeying through a timeline painted bleary–
Worlds encircled malaise and mist thick-curled on
Paths that could be forgiven for their beauty
Could the terror of fatalist projection
Be dispelled, then one sees a field a garden.
Man is merely a man though known as danger
Or as boon; to the seer power's given:
Cherish or to avoid accordingly, and
For a lover a new cosmology–a
Haven and a responsibility to
Hope. To live as though heedless what the world may
Be or what it is not; to know the path while
Blind by heartfelt conviction; holding fast for
My companion holds fast for me. And Love the
Armor, compass, and star above gives guidance:
Shining higher–impossibly beyond the
Night's dimensions of doubt. It blazes there, though
Seeming not for the world to touch, yet we are
Touched by it. When I see your face I know that
We are not in the moor among the vapors;
This entrapment of senses, notions, thoughts that
Seek to grind into dust the spirit, choking
Fog laid thick upon life–it's so pervasive.
Look! With you by my side my head's unbowed, your
Hand in mine is the strength of breath unlabored!
Here: unmoved and yet this is not the labyrinth
Life has wrought–how the same conundrums fly from
Us that once so imposing made us cower.
Upper light, same as light within, makes plain the
Path, the need to survive; the world I'm facing
Clears and brightens with you and I embracing.
A place for my poems 