On The Surface Of Impenetrable Things Poem by RIC BASTASA

once when young
i played on the skill of my hands
to touch
what others dare not,

fire
and heat and cinders
and flints and
glints
and bubbling water
and sparkles of wine
fermenting
anger

age has given
a tray of pain
a glass of bitterness
a pail of failures
and the mind mellows down
too slowly like
a fruit ripening
gently

there are bottomless abysses
deep wells unreachable
by the longest rope
there are dark holes
and blunt corners
there are ocean floors
without names

and then the time has come
not for surrender
in the hopelessness of it all
it is the time for the quieting of
the rage
the stilling gesture of nature
that somehow
things at the right time open themselves
like arms wanting to embrace you
the secrets revealed
the understanding as wide as space
as deep as the edge of this
mysterious universe

always at the right time
always shall the proper season come
soon, soon....