The Muse Lingers Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

Ahha! The muse has not left. I float in mid-night knowledge
as a soul adrift in prayer holds conscious intent
wordlessly, directing it by desire alone.

During many years when laid aside, I dreamt
hopelessly of this power; and always the message came:
‘Humble thyself under the might hand of God,
and in due time he shall exalt thee.'
And so I chafed
under the yoke; but now am fully calibrated,
a telescopic rifle, crosshairs in alignment.

I knew it would come to this. What I did not know
was the dark underworld throu which I must pass to reach it -
the years of night required to produce an hour of sun.
Aiming for the epicentre of my darkness
I became my light, transformed by the impassable wall.
Like Samson, eyeless in Gaza, by focussing one's will
even chains can be agents of release.
To centre yourself: visit your circumference.

Suddenly there's sense: an athlete's training pains
translate to winning gains. So in the soul's prison
the bars are a bowstring from which by will alone
the arrow of (r) evolution is fired. The ‘real world'
is not the only one. By finding otherness
within paradox new dynamic worlds are formed.

Between the two nights, blindness and death, lies the invisible
path to light. Finding a second birth demands
just as great a ruthlessness as being born.
This is Life fighting for life itself, for an unknown
future dependent on this one forgetable link.
To be selfless we have to be selfish. Apologising
to all my individuation wounded, I say
see the ends and means as balancing each other.

‘God screws the lukewarm, slays the heart the faints,
and saves His deepest silence for His saints.'*

Those impatient for gain can never stay for long
enough to find their change, and so are lost to time,
slipping throu the cracks in the clock's face, missing
by seconds their ideal pace.

We are by night as we are by day, but without the lies:
we are by day as we are by night, but without the sight.
Duality's mirror confuses those who lack
the power of self-reflexion.

The birds of dawn already sing,
natural followers of light
welcoming with eager sight
the opportunities it brings.

So let us seek with joyful hearts
the mystery of life, and where
within the labyrinth of care
the road to liberation starts.

We know the place of all the planets,
yet no longer know our own.
Imagined orphans, we alone
can't see coherence in the gamut.

The world I thought a hostile place,
yet now I see I saw my face.
O let us holy lovers be,
for then our eyes true love shall see.


15/6/11
* Updike, Midpoint