Can there be hope
When we accept
Five dimensions
Of existence,
And when we make
The compromise
Of living sane?
Or is it sane
To live in jails
With open doors
And yet refuse
To become free,
Or is it sane
To deliver
All consciousness
To a routine repetition?
Does the sea care
If the sailboat
Has a captain
Who is long dead?
Does the sea care
If the sailboat
Wanders around
For eighty years
Without the sight
Of a harbor?
Who made swamps
From the rivers?
Are we shortchanged
'Gain and again
When the hero
Is turned to worm,
When all knowledge
Bans all wisdom,
When the essence
Gives way to form,
When liberty
Is chained by norm?
Are we, tell me,
The cold shadow
of raging fire?
The ritual,
The daily lie,
Faceless, nameless
Aliens, homeless?
Are we, really
Stagnant air
But not the breath,
Fast moving lips
But not the smile,
Vibrating sound
But not the song?
And what about
The ecstasy
Which we must earn
From the heaven,
Will it also
Fade like the sun
A thousand times
To reach the earth?
Or the laughter
Of the sad child,
Or the weeping
Of the poet
Will they also
Become buried
In the wild roar
Of the river?
Arcadia, July '88