The Creative Act

I’m rolling through the winding streets
Where all I’ve come to know has died.
The powers of your poignant touch
Have ruined what I’ve tried to do.
And nothing matters to the one
Who came to be the one I was
When I was what I longed to be—
When I was all I’d ever sought.

The rapture of the breaking wind
Is bearing down upon my chest.
The one I’ve been through all these years
Has come to know the truths that he
Forgot before he fell upon
His broken knees and battered face,
Then rose to find the howling wind
Upon him in a whirl of waste.

I’m learning of the things I’ve done.
I’m finding ways to rise again.
I’m searching for the lore of old
That keeps me bound to all I know.
And what becomes of one who is
The keeper of the gates beyond
The realm of which we only dream
When all is lost and all is wrong?

It could be said, he’d rise again
And find himself upon the tide,
At peace within his realm of frost—
Forever strong as oak or ash—
Forever at your calling for
The taking and the giving of
The bits of life that once he lost—
The trials of his sinking pride.

Tumbling, shale over flint,
Granite for a bed,
Set over an orbiting furnace
Stone ledges leapt into the skies,
Soaring o’er the ages,
As nothing else can fly through time,
So slow and sure,
That nought deflects their course,
Excepting just the very wind and rain,
Whose constant tribulations will make vain,
The highest climbing mountain peaks of earth,
They casually erode these errant bluffs,
Deferring stone to dust and girth for dearth,
Tumbling ever more into a plain,
That which has risen,
And may yet rise again.

Climbing hills of molten metal;
The fragrance of a rose petal;
The way I hold you late at night:
These things are on my mind tonight.

The quiet of your beating heart
Is breaking all my fears apart.
I’m set to wake upon the morn’
When all my hopes will be reborn.

The cracking of their wanton whips
Cannot outdo your crimson lips.
The look upon your seemly face
Becomes your ever comely grace.

The day I part from you will come
When all I’ll ever sing is sung;
When all I’ve ever known is dead;
When nothing’s left inside this head.

But never do I dare to fear
That dreadful day when doom is near—
For all I know right now, tonight,
Is that our future’s burning bright.