REFLECTIONS ON A DAY

Morning.Tea in hand, a woman looks
into my eyes as far as desire.
To embrace another is to embrace oneself.
And to go as far as life is to speak
the heart's impossibilities.

Afternoon. As I kneel to paint behind the toilet
more than my ego is being effaced. My poetry,
singing its affirmations, struggles to emerge
from that secret place where words have yet
to form . . . All my life two steps from the answer.

Night. As I write these words the nameless singers
begin their nocturnal choruses of unreasonable joy,
another day beginning in darkness, another day
pulling toward but not quite reaching
the human heart.