Thou Art
—Thorn & Balm—
Thou art the thorn that threads my quivering vein,
Darkness bellows in thunder, thunder bleeds to sable;
Each pulse a prism where my torment meets my gain,
Collides in sinews taut, each nerve unstable.
Thou art the fire that flickers through my marrow,
The frost that forks along each argented line;
A taste of ash, a brine, a bitter-sweet harrow,
All sound conspires, all shadowed senses intertwine.
I see thee in the scintillant bend of light,
Where rain refracts and ripples stone to stone;
Thy voice, a torrent rending fissured night,
Currents shaping every sorrow of my own.
Each glance, a cunning ambuscade of breath,
The iron chill, the whispering hinge, the glow;
Soft flame entwined with salt and scent of death,
Yet in thy orbit every wound I come to know.
The lattice of the wind intones thy law,
Its leaves, a lexicon of lightning, sharp and keen;
Water crackles, shakes, submits to thy awe,
And I, encased in all, am forged between.
Thou art the fracture, and thou art the seam,
The pulse, the prism, the balm, the bleeding dream;
Every sense converges: scent and taste and gleam,
Sight, touch, and sound entwined in perfect theme.
I cannot flee, nor unentwine my fate,
Yet in thy orbit chaos calibrates;
Thou art the fault, the measure, the weight,
The very pulse that sculpts my fragile psalms innate.
At apex, all the elements converge and chime:
The thorned flame, the frost, the brine, the lightning hymn;
Darkness bellows, water crackles, scents and tastes entwine,
Problem and solution fused, in senses wrought to limb.
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