Poem 41: The Changing Gate

Why now my years have you brought me to the changing gate, shimmering bright
a formless haze yet with a detail painful in its clarity, with needles of perception
fine and terrible changing a tormented grid into a fan of loving fire, a stuttering
corpse into a rhyming song, approaching in muted joy, receding in sad distraction, turning me back through the doors of yesterday to the dark ages of my journey, hiding safe behind the blocks of night, fearing the day to shape my stones diamond mirrors, a hall of piercing lights to shine me the transparent dwarf, wringing for the days in the beginning, feeding warm, slept on without the waking illusion, until time with his colored rattle broke the cradle and opened the door impossible now to leave ajar for the return as it had removed itself to appear again before me, always to be opened, each time learning more and knowing less, bringing me to the forest city where I walked with many, caressing trees, possessing flowers, til at last I came to the pool of promises where I stood with folded wings scarlet feathered and crossing the sun I dived for pearls always rising empty handed only to be told that the pearl had been in my hand even before I had dived, so as a parting gesture I gave the pool my reflection, a gift she could not use, and followed the piper to the new doors, laughing with the children that played in dark alleys beneath sky filled balloons, crying with the weeds that bound the morning to invisible colors, angry at my loving that issued in quarters and thirds, finding at last all doors the same, only the keys differed and they broke in my hand and in the breaking built me another door, until I found a cross to climb, but in climbing discovered that it held only the climber, so the doors ceased for you to give me this gate, there is no lock, yet I am the key, now it changes to show me beyond itself, a man dressed in soft linen, pale lilac his mantle, and around his head a halo of stars, and knowing him as my brother of knowing, as I will be him my brother of being, and smiling I lean forward,
for touching him will bend the gate to collect my tears and wash the sand from my feet.