the long gaze of perfection offers up
an image of the unimagined coming to fruition
loving losing lofting its auspices
without repenting into the morning air . . .

amid limits falling away the tired mystery
made raw brought to measure its own talent
against the unimagined / from between
the sands of a temporal aching emerges a voice . . .

the fault line never brought to the altar of naming
never made into event or advent or penetration
of vision by vision introducing the turbid pulse
that wants a follied sojourn into forgetting . . .

throughout a constellation of sentiment
the tested beauty of the gaze initiates
a struggle between perfection and folly
with a science of perspiration and prayer

and the silent majority of imaginings
that augur wholly indispensable love. . .

© 2002 Joseph Robertson
THE LONG GAZE OF PERFECTION
JOSEPH ROBERTSON
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