Man Of Heart Alone

To touch the stone again
Yet keep both hands wrapped
Tight around the wheel

Or see the way again
Yet feel both feet
Set firmly on the ground—

The way-of-the-world on-the-loose
Takes time to learn, takes time to teach,
And I am wise but wasted now,
A man of heart alone.

Fear, or courage,
Neither one now matters,
But only this that drives us.

Not breath held back
Or blood stopped cold
But only hope's bright falcon,
Our love that's flown unmeasured.

Not the fury that swells the blood gone wild
Or the need in the cries of the child,
But only this limitless searching,
The soul-in-term's firm grasp.

Suzanne, come heed, come feed me;
In the pleasures of knowing
Are limits that limit our pride;
Our passions are proud, and just, and shy,
But the world, make no error, will lie.

rcs.

3rd draft: 06/02/05
©1980 Ronald C. Southern

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[It's an old poem and was always a sort of impressionistic or abstract piece, without concrete detail, and I was never able to rewrite it in a more realistic vein. Better to leave it like it was, really, except for some small changes made recently.]

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"Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter." — William Ralph Inge

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