LETHE

Born on this Earth a sentient soul, happy and free.
Not spiteful or jealous or indentured or mean,
Not some guarantee or docket that certifies I’m me.
Whole, wholly undivided, for this part, for this role
Undiminished as Sun by either dark clouds or night.

This flesh has an ether memory of far clouds, rain,
Of a fall into Lethe with but a few beads of belief
To remember by, remember by, so that all may rise.
Each plexus, a gyre, vortex, a gear, lifting upwards
Like the chain of twenty-nine locks on Devizes canal.

Unknown, un-owned, a beat of ripples repeating, regrown,
Ever expanding, a lotus heart, a sun lit focus, light tipped
As Ashoka’s crown, heaven sent yet fleeting, evanescent
As a bubble, a beauty, as wrinkles on wizened skin or
Wisdom distilled from steam, in this dream of a stream.