The unquiet heart

A world of moving energies
             —nothing is still
in this animated universe
             no thing :
just as the matter of my mind
             is restless and moves in a stream
sometimes of consciousness
             sometimes not
back and forth
             in time and place
so that I am with my thoughts
             wherever they may be
but never still

Stillness is an alien concept
             it simply does not exist
from birth the child hungers for play
             and the heart pines for love
for the movement
             of thought
word and deed
             the bodyliness of the mind

So too the salmon cavorts
             in the crystal waters
as it fights its way upstream
             to spawn and so soon to die
in the begetting of life

So too beneath the shifting moon
             the mind roams seeking out the light
the radiance of another being
             feeding not on shadows and tears
but on touch and gesture
             and the warmth
of naked flesh upon flesh
             the tight-lipped embrace
and arms that enclose
             muscles that contract
and the deathless leap
             into the depths
of an ecstasy that subsides
             in a diminishing tide of sighs

John Lyons