The mosaic of plants, living and dying together
is the community I sense climbing a caesura of
steep stone steps with lungs and legs
lifting each other around switchbacks.

If there is life after death, a heaven after earth,
when were we ensouled, James? This path is
reddening with unborn fires licking branches
blackened years ago; gluttonish tongues hot
as minds burned by their own enlightenment.

In Late Style, poets and philosophers are not
wise as Old Stony Face who rolled into place.

 

 

James: Probably James Hillman, author of The Soul's Code,
New York, 1996.