In the realm of senses

Can poetry heal a body
         broken on the wheel of time
can words redeem
         what the senses have lost ?
All my life I have been
         in two minds or more
the number is an irrelevance
         my imagination crowded out
by the glow of winter stars
         What I have thirsted for
I have yet to find
         but I have been driven
to know the nature of things
         of love principally
and beauty and truth
         perhaps all part and parcel
of the fabric and burden 
         of the world

Poetry the voice
         of acquired intuitions
fed by the fret and fury
         and tender frailties
of human commerce
         Do not say
that reason is maimed
         that the tongue raves
or that the mind stumbles
         into darkness
nor that there is no wit
         in love :
it is the body
         that makes sense of the mind
that makes sense of the body
         and from that marriage
all dreams are born
         and lived out in substance
so that the frost that clings
         to every blade of grass
clings as much to the mind
         that shivers with the cold
so that when love too turns away
         and a light is extinguished
the gentle warmth of a cheek
         is lost forever

John Lyons