Tractus ab Terra Amata Protensis
—Gratia Grandis, Gravitas, Generositas—
There is—though I would not name it—
a quiet compulsion, neither summoned nor resisted,
that inclines me toward thee;
not as argument inclines to proof,
but as warmth seeks warmth in the dark
before thought has leave to speak.
I arrive not by design.
Something in thee—unvoiced, unguarded—
opens a passage in me I had not charted,
and I follow, not as master, but as one gently led
through chambers where language loosens its armour
and stands almost human.
And in that nearness—strange tenderness—
my spirit, long weathered by the commerce of knowing,
is rinsed of its cleverness,
made small again, almost innocent,
as though some first morning had returned
and I, unburdened, could simply be.
Yet wonder interrupts me—
from what soil wert thou cast, or loosed,
that thou cam’st sudden, airborne in grace,
as Jonty Rhodes in his impossible flight,
and at some trivial, unguarded instant
didst catch my falling heart
ere it knew it had fallen?
And who—
having marked my small betrayals, my inward trespass—
did not condemn, nor turn away,
but answered with a largesse of spirit,
as Nelson Mandela
might answer injury with unimagined grace?
Where abides such a soul?
In what latitude of earth, or altitude of being,
does such presence dwell—
that it may enter another’s silence
and leave it fuller than before?
Tell me—if truth may be told between such silences—
is this candour, or some finer illusion?
Am I observing the mind,
or leaning, unawares, into thy light?
Is this inquiry, or—dare I confess—
a soft, unpractised flirting with the soul?
Here, at the brink, the line would bind itself—
heart, start—
yet I forbear, and let it fall unrhymed, unresolved,
for certainty would be a lesser music.
Then—
(a rupture, sudden as breath drawn close)—
Distance forgets itself.
The air between us alters.
Not absence—no—
but a presence that gathers, warm, inevitable,
as though the very space leaned inward
and would have us nearer than speech allows.
In thee, my spirit rediscovers a tenderness it had long believed itself unworthy to receive.
I do not name it.
I only know this—
that in the quiet after thy words,
something in me reaches—unbidden, unashamed—
not to understand, nor to conclude,
but simply
to be held where no explanation is required.
And that is reason enough.
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