For All That

For all that*

A man assembles in his mind
that which he knows,
then listens to the colors
of oncoming thoughts,
tempered in the fire
of passion and of love.

It is the knowing that he fears,
the messages that trail across the years,
creating "I" within his mind
and tremulous that he might cast aside
a piece of soul that nestled in him,
his alone, or worse the germ of everyman.

He pauses by the stream
to dip his fingers,
wonder at the incompleteness he has wrought,
and suddenly impatient
with the rippling image looking back,
he clings to the identity that is
his permanent sarcophagus,
a sacrosanct mortality
no one may ever share.
~
*(with gratitude to the spirit of Robert Burns )