Withholding Why

(For Kathleen Raine, pt. I)

Our earthly sorrows’ leaden weight
Diffused in moonlight, heaved

Toward lichenous cliffs with jagged face
And sent there, boiling down

For diamond tinctures, sulfurbathed
A future gift of tears

Here, birth of all things, present known
Where rapture ruptures void

And cosmos flares forth evernow
The unborn birth of all

Through yearning windows, eyes that seek
And grow through patient pain

Life gains intensity in you
Through dark roots, soil and soul

All seen through fleeting gyred eyes
Of fractalizing foam

That break upon on serrated stone
Screaming severity

Till back through hushing rhythmic sighs
Whisper serenity

As airy drops collide, collapse
Undoing sunderance

Remembering that unborn peace
In reaching waves’ retreat

Searching your restless questions posed
To pregnant silences

Desperate quiescence, moiling peace
Dark tempest, open sky

Shattering every desperate word
Always, withholding why