The Seminary Of The Sown Seed Poem by James Whitworth

The seminary of the sown seed,
Rounded and smoothed by the river of wind
And pacing with a soundless footfall
Upon the ground surrounding age,
Is womb and urn and temple between,
Till breath is bled and raked across its grave.

The seminary of the sown seed,
Sequestered from the spiralled arc of growth,
Ripe with innocence to trust in truth
At the pin-point of a hurricane’s eye:
That woo of youth that rises behind
The solace that sings from the centred void.

The seminary of the sown seed
Ages not in years, matures by ages,
Until the circling sea coughs up its ghosts
And sets them spinning on a sunless shore;
Their saviour sought has been burned in lament,
The print of his foot sunk deep in descent.

The seminary of the sown seed,
That lies not like the stark white flesh
And unblinking eye encompassed by sleep,
Waits at rest on the crest of the world’s curve;
There the slumbering season threatens a change,
And, returning its name, falls to decay.

The seminary of the sown seed
Steers the stars to their final alignment;
Whose sentence yet remains unpassed
Between the air-shaped night and day
And land-locked hours where soon the hand
That ticked my birth shall tock a timeless death.