Willowed Stream

Not the sound of any hammer could be heard

Silent the truer work of the turning around

The stinging things being made a delight:

The scriptured cache of past mysteries made plain

The well-worn ancient Puzzlebook being deciphered
And unlocked . . .

The whirring of a fan winnowing the harvest

A threshing of knowledge-mountains, beating them small

Making of the hills of outsides – chaff

That only their sacred centers remain

The whirlwind scattering life’s proud knowledge-waves

Single blows, and the roar and rush of the liked part

Her pearls (the not-liked part) silent for they were as two

Yet the prudent few chose instead a hammering of truth

And what they thought was gold

For which they paid a high price and lost the prize

Single blows and our liked parts were all one-sided truth

All a cat’s purr, but grating as the sound of a saw

And the engine-buzz of a busy fly

All fool’s gold and an apple cradled in a broken glass

Only the severed parts of seven and so never the whole

Seeing what seemed to shine in knowledge’s outsides 

The un-golden apple they held to their breast; which

Not being made to hang onto, was as a broken glass

Not whole, not remade it would hold no new wine

If only parts it could hold, never perfect

Their lines they tangled; their slender unfed leaves

Went dangling down and winnowed fell breaking off

The slowings of life in every willowed stream

The clogged up muddles of thinking we knew

Clearing as the running light came sifting through

Would now they dig out their willowed stream

Let the light of life go rushing through them

A cloudburst’s flood to clear every path of inner mud:

Dead skinny leaves, one-sided knowledge bits  

Let it sweep away all their cloggings up

Of things too long held in overcrowded streams