Suzuki Sutra

On a ribbon of asphalt,
through paddocks and fields,
with the wind, against the odds,
blinded by lupines, enlightened by owls, chilled by fog, warmed by cliffs,
in daylight, at dusk
I wonder what
does my Muse desire?

As poets we bleed
into each other's wounds.
In the deserts of ease, we sculpt
oases of remembered pain. Reading
each other's words, dreamlike we enter
the swirling smoke world of private
symbols. Cats become
mothers, birds become
lost children, and water
reclaims all. Vortices
of superimposed memories
shake us out of cocoons. Warmth of
understanding pumps blood
into our sleeping wings.

I know why
motorcyclists wave,
albeit with coolness,
at each other: we alone
know the exhilaration,
the absolute joy and terror,
of unprotected speed.
Only by going so fast do we maintain stability, balanced
on patches of rubber
no bigger than our tongues.
All we can do is stick out
our left hands as we pass by,
wrapped in the cocoon
of slipt air, rapt in the moment.

But after creation,
the wine is spilt, the party over, the
candles burned to puddles.
I stand amidst the ashes
of Pompeii: no pomegranate for
Persephone blooms here. Echoes
of the market-place children's laughter
chide and chasten. I must leave
the temple; I am no longer priest, hardly
a worthy supplicant. Only the hope
of a phoenix sustains me as I climb
upon sticks of sandalwood
and cinnamon, as I throw
my leg over the saddle.

Surely this poetic existence
is a flat-curved highway,
my spirit a V-twin bike.
And when we pass each other
on the road, let us extend
our hands acknowledging
a kinship: both balanced
upon our tongues.