Whatever you desire, he said, is yours —
a psalter circa 1397,
a smorgasbord of sweetbreads and a tapir,
a bucketful of eels, a smarter phone,
a pool of moonlight and a star’s
bright insubstantiality,
a beech tree of one’s own, its copper leaves
swirling like woodsmoke in the autumn wind,
the hot and agile tongue of Cleopatra,
her slippery skin slick with exotic oils . . .
Though tempted by his offerings —
Christmas in every month, a cure for cancer,
pure opium on a drip, an apple tree
ripe with the knowledge of both good and evil,
a gaudy frangipani and an orchid,
sweet madrigals, the music of the spheres,
a panoply of peacocks, rainbows, angels,
a Lotto mega-win, eternal life —
I skipped away, a nobody with nothing,
and felt as light as dust and free as air.
Such offerings, - and yet the last the best, 'light as dust and free as air'.
ReplyDeleteYes! The older I get, the more I realise that 'possessions', even beautiful ones, can bind, and freedom is a lightness of being and an attitude of mind.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, the most beautiful things, the highest and most worthy things, you can never possess, nor would want to…
ReplyDeleteHe who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
WILLIAM BLAKE