Oh, Hidden Whisperer

What was it
that drove those brightest flecks
scattered across
the stretching firmament
of ages past
to inscribe in blood
their burning truths?

All move to the sway
of their singular rhythm,
and yet the whole sky turns,
tracing out patterns
that go on living
underneath our floorboards,
sending whispers in cold breath
upon our sleeping ears.

There can be no disentangling.

That which drove them
must yet move us—
for what other source
could feed our energic,
playful dancing
if all, in the end,
were merely wayward drifting?

Why,
if we should be so blessed,
would we opt to fight
against the talons
that grip our shoulders
from on high,
dragging us upward
through lofty, buoyant,
high-flown, manic gales
surging from below
and swirling madly unto death?

Living—
what a brief, flickering interval;
a green-hazed flash
of meteoric aura,
no sooner apprehended
than already long gone.

Yet so often
we treat it all too sternly,
as if it were so enduring,
so solid, so serious, so real.

Still,
deafeningly loud
can be the pitch of pain
we are made to endure,
taking us to the very borders
of what we believe
we can bear.

If, at last,
we are wed to our suffering,
why not resolve to burn
through a love
white-hot and furious,
and see though
the full course
of our arranged betrothal?

Should I be so lucky
to stumble upon the trapdoor
pupiling the iris labyrinth
and descend through
the dark, cortical depths
to find imagination’s
dank antechamber,

I will take my seat
at the dust-filmed desk
decorated with the skulls
of some long-deceased friends,
unidentified,
who gave their blood
to that old inkwell,
and take up the quill,
setting to work
with hardly a thought spared.

Oh, hidden whisperer,
grant me wings
to fly
as they had.

Perhaps I’ll glow,
if even dimly,
incandescent
upon the periphery
of the great constellation
that keeps me stirring here..