At Fintry House
by Jay RamsayOriginal Language English
In the light that is home
always and forever,
wherever we are--
this place of returning
this is heavenly and earthly
at once, like us--
sitting between these pillars
at the garden's edge
that is the temple of this house.
And the garden spreading
expanding in all directions
level, and stepped down
descending into woodland
rising into the Downs beyond
The glory broken and unbroken
but never fading
always fading, always returning
unannounced--
seasontide and seasonfall,
out of the fractals of life
where we have our being
the incomplete kaleidoscope
of our seeing...
a whole sky above us, always
a presence that's thick as air
and never leaves us
filling us in silence,
in the moonlight of its desire.
*
Come again, strange topiary
unknown mouth, new eyes
lead us beyond death
into your mystery.
Above and below
always aligning--
never quite satisfied.
Ever-alive
to this chance of our lives,
spelling their memories out
frame by frame
in awe and wonder
'This was my life...'
ever-refining its light
from within.
Climbing a ladder,
descending a stairway,
with the same infinite care.
We could fling ourselves
out of this place--
carelessly abandoning
our lives to the breezes...
or we can learn to remain
and sing where we are
in a choir that transcends the ages,
like the Great Wall seen from space
like the neon lights of the city
necklaced in the darkness...
like the patchwork of fields
stitched between hedges
as we arrive like a bird in its feet.
*
There is no answer
in heaven or earth but this
glory, and praising it
giving to Life with our lives,
where everyone is longing for it
and great souls still walk
down the corridors of time,
where a hundred years is as nothing
to all the generations
who have been and are to come.
And this red acia
flaming below,
on fire in the golden light
suffusing it--
that only blooms once like this
and again once
every passing year
like our steps in the garden
from tennis lawn to apple trees
bounding rabbit and shy-edged deer
calling us, each absorbed
in the summerland of its dream
feeding the dreamers
and all dreamless sleep
we answer with poetry, each to each.
Around this sanctuary
the ceaseless roar of traffic
rises and falls like a greater breath;
all of us returning
to our edge and end.
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