hold the balance

hold the balance of the
hours in one palm,
and with your
dirty knuckles go
into the world.

moonlight havens
and sunrise gravity
can be wretched things when
you're infused with darkness,

so be the nearest
star and skim
the surfaces of
lakes on your
quest for love.

there are salts of passion
in all things, and
the trick is to ameliorate
every taste of this life
with the tongue of the heart.

you have your father's
sense of lost direction;
the wanderlust of a boy
racing away from the
fevers of a thousand marks

left on perilous skin
by the lashing barbs
of the wicked and cold
wingless fools.

how are things?
how are things in the
eyes of a boy who
loses sight of the
footsteps of poems?

to be standing with you
in the upswing of your
glorious springtide is the
ascension of good souls.

i have dreams about you
and how your cells were
different, and how your blood
was different, and how your
first vision was that of another
father.

i can't fathom the depth
of that loss! to think
that you could have come
dancing into another
man's life! not my son.

i am cold without
your comfort; a bleak
waterless tide; a sound
of wasted wailing against
a tripping wind.

to my thinking - the
thinking of a smaller
man - you are the fingers
on the grass, the singing
bird in his branch; the
taste of green.

make still any tempest
and climb from within
your wildly beating
wings and solidly craving
soul to meet me.

you are the son of a
man who paints with
a feather upon the
canvas of joy and pain
and are the bright ink
therewith.

so:

hold the balance of the
hours in one palm,
and with your
dirty knuckles go
into the world.