Goldberg Variations

Whirling through torpedoes of sound,
spinning and tailing its way like Raphael to earth,
shoots some uninstantaneous ether:
the impermeable myelin of true experience.
The soul—the richest treasure chest ever found;
creating, disseminating, revealing, glimmering, alluring.
Rawest sense material pinging in gold-tipped purls of rose-furls:
stroking the ears as gently as a brook,
yet roaring with the might of an ocean-river undammed,
with strength enough to loose the captives.
Dance—that vital union of impulse and excursus,
Funnelling to earth to free the heart with unspeakable words.
Beauty will save the world, said a great Russian writer:
But how does that matter unless it first save our souls?
Wending, winking, welding walls of splendor; almighty proportions,
austere glory of Euclidean quintessence,
draining, distilling, disgorging life's elixir into a jet-black pearl
suspended in honey-dew drops:
Then the peak of the ascent and the plummet back to the globe of the touched;
yet refusing to leave us untouched.
Surely there is more to what there is than whatever we wish it to be,
Yet the continuum plunges on in measured oar-strokes,
to reach in all haste that prized and glistering and all-consuming whole;
Unfilched fire of sparks and symmetries to wound the soul with terror
Of the known but not realized:
After all that, we arrive at the beginning,
and let our sails be billowed with burnished breezes.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2021

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