The Love Which Rules Me

This love is more exotic, more erotic, yes,

than all the lore can contain;

more sumptuous and more voluptuous,

and simpler it is, plainer as well, I'll explain:

Rich in color and in tones, this love,

humble as a mendicant, majestic as his staff;

natural as a baby's breathing life,

aged as a crone who can rage and can laugh.

Enfolding you within its wings, as it embraces me,

the lion and the lamb in one;

it moves – and moves within, this form as free

as it commands, and guides, and calls me son.

At sixty I remain in debt to all who brought me here,

the love that was in me invested shall not have been in vain;

still as a pond, roaring like cascading river:

life-giving force, of never-ceasing inspiration.

There Is A River

There is a constant rushing stream of fresh water

whose ageless stillness is the mother to its steady movement,

embracing all other sound in its own.

As from a choir holding one note drawing myriad overtones,

a bather could be bathed or overwhelmed in the pulse of that current;

one river, many strokes of water, every moment the same and changing.

I can sit on either bank, straddle or wade or walk away;

I can howl at it, laugh or weep, ignore it, curse it or write odes;

there can be no stopping its force, its voice is always with me.

If it were to dry up, if its harsh sweet water were to quit –

if this river gave itself up to the 'dammed', my life would go with it.

This river is simply my love for Levi.