Sidney Wade
The Vulgate of Experience
In this tatterdemalion sandwich of Life,
it pays to pay attention to the light,
not to the oligarchic spread of heavy principles,
or to four-week traditions.
There are multitudes caught in the glare
and just as many stuck in a radiant head-book.
The book says even though we might reflect
the bruised glory of all the suns
that ever shone down on the earth,
mostly everyone’s dreaming in a savage room
or searching for the beloved in the desert.
I admit I, for one, am clouded by experience,
though I’m feeling my way into a weird pre-waking
from the old parabola of darkness.
Some nights I sleep in wild weather
where the names of God change furiously.
Sometimes I wander in the available light.
The wind is always a perilous distraction.
On rare, sweet days I hear a brown, nut-like sound.
Inside this sound you can hear the imagination fluttering.
Here joy whiskers through the main arteries.
Here is where, if you hold out your hands, they will be filled.