I went walking
in the twilight
Where all was
full and free
Where half the
light was edged in sun
The other half
in moon
The tide was
flowing in and out
And on it,
brought a tree
Stark naked dead
and bare, floating
Its branches
stuck up in the air
Wherever I
turned to look
There a small
dead tree
I saw dead trees
– everywhere
And all along
the harbour path
Four times I saw
the barren thing
Beside the
water’s edge
And four times I
deeply wondered
What had become
of me?
So strange to
see a similar thing
Wherever I
chanced to look
But I knew the heart of Love
Was speaking in
me
Of all ascending
and descending:
My spirit’s
‘spinal cord’
Jacob’s
ladder there
As my own
thoughts step up and down
My way first
easy then is hard
But once I am
perplexed
Then all easy
once again
For
where I didn’t know, I knew
Ever
my own deceiver
My
first name is in easy ways
Not
liking hard I fall and rise
According to
what I will of me, give up
Only my
understanding taken
Can be brought
to me anew
At the point I
am split in twain:
Two-edged
renewed
QUOD PETIS HIC
EST:
What you seek is
hard
That
for which I ask:
The
hardest thing of all!
To go against my
lust for knowing
To set myself at
nought
And to stay
there
All in joy!
To step back
from the easy way
To do nothing
but believe
Oh, what I seek
is hard
Hard!
To bear the
affront
Of having my
knowledge
Annulled
And not to be
sad!
To have only
what I cannot see or touch
That in my dying
live!
To gain the
prize of life never won of self
What I seek is
hard!
QUOD PETIS EST
FACILE:
What you seek is
easy
That for which I
ask
It is the
easiest thing of all!
To do nothing
That I might
understand what I can’t
To do nothing
but float in joy
Where I was
nought!
To stand still
in the hard way
To only believe
it easy
What I seek is
easy
Easy!
To delight in
the sting
Of finding my
knowledge squashed
To be happy in
having the reality
Of only the
seeming nebulous
To live in my
dying
And of love
receive a new name
What I seek is
Easy!
THE DEAD
TREE SAILS ON . . .
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