if your road is wine-dark & you drink
& your blood is sunlight & swimming

if the little freedoms that form you
taste like clean winter air

if the whole of time finds itself & disappears
in the geometry of your breath

if you are prone to becoming
those things you always doubted

if genuflection is an artform
& you place all questions inside it

if politics gives you equal measures
of epiphany & raucous fatigue

if elegance identifies itself in you
but you refuse to answer the call

if mirrors frighten & distill your neurons
one by one until you flee

if dragonflies look like holy vessels
& you pray to the sheen of their wings

if fame is one of many myths
gathered in your fist like grapes

if the will is a symphony performed
by all that your mind has not touched

if morning has no meaning beyond
the scents you ascribe to morning

if repetition is the name of doubt
& you believe at your center

if everything is faith or faith's envoy
& faith is an insurmountable fact

if a window can contain infinities
& the self is a window

then safely you might describe your
rootless nocturnal ruminations as human

& you are suited to improvise a love
with which to trim & shatter obstacles

& the universe is moving toward you
with an invitation to the day

© 2001 Joseph Robertson

 

HOLY VESSELS
& AN INVITATION
JOSEPH ROBERTSON
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