Long ago this futile quest would have been relinquished,
But the fire lit by one kiss could not be extinguished.
The foxes have their holes, the birds their nests and men their beds,
But the swagmen of God have nowhere to lay their heads.
To acquire this body for you, millions of others have I burned;
So there can be no question of my asking for it to be returned.
Because I see my shadow I know love’s sun has risen.
But my fascination with my shadow has become my prison.
What of the warm-housed ones, and us on this trackless journey?
How great the distance between us — we are bound and they are free.
The beach trembling under your fingers
the wave erasing the pattern of your careful nails;
Time’s rollers are laundry-ringers
coiling clothes of flesh into baskets.
Each I have known
has been a mirror
To a new aspiration
You alone
are the giver
Of beyond-mere-jubilation.
You can endure the monotony of evenings,
of pleasures, of seas, mornings,
trains and motor cars, because all these are beings
born of your certitude. They are your singings from solitude.
When, at last, I thought I knew your loveliness
I fell from the sun into an emptiness
in which the Pacific was a jewel
glistening on one finger of your caress.