The terraced gardens of love and desire, vistas of self reflected upon itself and all that transpires, from seed to bloom, ash to absence, living room to oblivion, earth in the hand, touch first gathered, from promise to thorn, and voices whispering on the wind the name NO ONE, the theme AND NO ONE TO BLAME -- the risen life mocking not our sin but our utter bewilderment, our inappropriate shame, as if duty meant merely to stay the course, distance becoming virtue, pain the sure reward. . . Soul is sky, earth, dawn, the one longing for love -- and we, what are we? Child, witness, fool? The vows not taken, the road yet travelled. . . All leads to the place before our birth: unsettled, with a cry, hands reaching into air. The proof is in time. The madman says "Prove it" -- and goes on staring into the distance, the spectacle of 'who' . . . transmogrified. There is a view no one can see without transforming the very sky -- as if sunset were sunrise, life bleeding into death, wish into flesh, and the human into the divine. . . Darling, if I were a mirror, I would wait forever behind the shyness of your perfection.