IN THE GARDEN OF ALLAH 2/5/97

The poets all expound
How fleeting are the pleasures
Of this, our dew like existence
And further how momentary
Are its pains.
Yet Allah in his hidden mirth
Mysteriously drops the cool golden
Moments like sweet tropic rain
In wastes of heated heaving salt.

How is it then, that mere
Children do so exquisitely enjoy
The mornings of life
While we in our maturing age
So better knowing
Cannot sense a thing
Quaffing greedily our anesthetic
All for fear of pain not yet felt.

Tell me further too
How pleasure could be
Greater than to lie on cool yellow
Stone by water as glass
Undisturbed by the gentle globe's
Ponderous rotation into dawn
And drink through half open lids
Lately sleeping
The mango light of a new sun.

Blue green air fresh with
The sharpness of earth waking
Ears full of the sea sound of
This liquid in which we breathe
The slow and languorous swimmer's
Stretch of immature limbs
The murmuring laughter of
Friend's conversation close to hand.

Limestone urns immovably immense
Glowing like lamps in the horizontal rays
Softly muting their flaming source's fiery power
And beyond the garden wall's mothering security
The world waits in wonder begging our eye behold it.