Not

Not to support the future is the hope,
Starting at the radiant point of entrance,
Wheedling a dogged inheritance.
Enormous groves of flourishing giants,
Outsize the actions of flesh-bound circumstance,
Holding hostage the new-born seeds of spring.
Shadows fold in every hollow of experience,
Meaning flows from its ambient light.
At this juncture the invitation to the dance
Informs the only world of its only stance.

Invaded armies of the past
Camp in the vantages of a life;
Measured responses forged in love
Till effect is no longer considered, hardly observed.
Each day born anew with its orchestrated ranks,
Plumes of every legion fill the battlefield,
Human laws mirror apparent circumstance.
The pale knight, with his tempered lance,
Kneels beneath a galvanized throne,
Filled with purpose not his own.

There is not a path that opens twice,
Fractured light conforms to itself alone.
A solid rainbow falls from the sky.
We hold what is lit in recurrent dreams,
Lines of shadow form from every plight.
Leaping forth into driven winds,
Scattered bodies lie about the field,
Dragged mercy winces in narrowed circumstance,
Wavers, a candle’s shadow, at the end.
Stubborn flames neither transform nor defend.