This outer dazzling radiance Imbues with melting desire Refracting in stained glass Shines over frothing waves Casts over sundial shadows Haloes the heroic statuary Banished within four walls Where silence, solitude reign Realm of inner marvels
The souls encased within the stone of statues,
Chimerical monsters, phantasmagorical creations, heraldic beasts,
Slowly exhale, stir sleepily, vividly animate, move rapidly,
Alight off the columns,
Descend from church alcoves,
Climb down from rooftops
To roam through the squares, palazzos and streets
Which they have always dominated symbolically
But now is the time to colonize the city concretely.
In the primal chaos
Before
Time and things
A split second
Of stillness
Silence
Condensing into a point
Almost disappearing
Smaller than a drifting speck
Of dust
Yet somehow vaster
Than all dimensions
Rushing to fill
The remaining real estate
This is the one
The way
Tao
This is the only
All opposites reconciled
All contradictions resolved
A magistry beyond measure
The integral harmony
Unity in its perfection
Desired multiplicity
Engendering the two
Who fought and loved
Birthing the three
That emanated
All the myriad things
Beneath Heaven
A floating world
Of impermanence
Fleeting phantasies
Transitory thoughts
Nothing so-of-itself
Yet longing for ideal
A oneness yet undivided
For a few seconds a stray sunbeam
Makes visible the dance of dust motes
Swaying, trembling, swooning then falling
I have been granted a glimpse
Of harmony in the floating world
For the moment I am deeply content
Eyelids heavy, chin dropping towards chest
I dream of angels in a distant Heaven
Languidly embracing in the shallows
Of a limpidly becalmed pool.
Incising memory
Of exorcised desire
Upon the crest
Surveying an Empire of Light
Superimposed upon the mazy suburban grid
Etched in bold relief against the satin backdrop
Myriad glowing grains
Reflections of the larger part of a broken China plate
I was told without a shadow
That this was the way back
The path home
But everything here is unfamiliar and strange
I must have misheard or been misled
I have to return to the starting point
Follow the road to within
The only sure course to reach the wider realm without
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