What Matters the World
By John Herlihy

What matters the way of the world,
In the flooded light of all that I seek.
Nature cannot destroy all the miseries,
That make my eyes and my heart weep.

The world has me in the clutches of time;
I am free in a knowledge I claim as mine.
True that the wild world does sustain me;
Also true the vast world cannot contain me.

The pull of the moon may control the tides;
But the tide’s lure never fully in me resides.
Universal nature and law never fit the mind;
The mind cannot be tamed, it’s one of a kind.

The body rotates with the globe as its mentor;
But my mind rotates around its own center.
No gravity, tide or orbit controls my thought;
I seek far beyond what the world has sought.

The fertile ground of my imagination is a gift,
My own perceptions and insights always lift.
They take me beyond what the world may offer,
Lift me on high with treasures found in my coffer.

Let the glorious world still turn in quiet rotation,
I only need close my eyes to imagine the sensation.
As it makes its journey through the colossal deep,
To finally discover and then unveil all that I seek.