II. De Interpellatione

I was drifting in thought at the edge of my mind

when a tremor behind me came breaking the line. 

So I halted, and wondered, and lifted my head--
was it you who had wandered so close to my stead?

You have startled me out of my quiet repose, 

out of memories rising like mist as it flows. 

How long have you lingered and listened so near 

to the murmuring voice you weren’t meant to hear?

So… greetings, then, since you have found me this way. 

I intended no harm, neither nightfall nor day. 

And if you have come, as all seekers will come, 

know I carry no treasure, no glimmer, no sum.

For the things of apparent worth left me long past; 

I abandoned such burdens when ages grew vast. 

What remains on my person is little to covet, 

and no one who has it will think much of it.

You discovered me tracing a thought from before— 

from an age in my life I recall little more. 

Early on in existence, I trusted the forms; 

I believed that the shape of a thing was its norm.

So I gathered appearances, year upon year— 

portraits, manuscripts, jewels I once held dear, 

even buildings and languages, cities and lands, 

all collected like beads in my wandering hands.

I imagined the surface of things told their tale, 

that the outline of life was the life in full scale. 

But the forms of the world are but brittle and slight, 

and they fracture beneath the long pressure of night.

And when all that I treasured was broken or gone, 

I was left with a silence I could not look on. 

It took ages to learn what the centuries teach: 

that the world is not shaped by the forms we can reach,

That a being is more than the body it wears, 

and a moment is more than the name that it bears. 

I had known only form, never essence beneath— 

never sensed the deep truth that lies under the sheath.

Essence was as a mystery hidden from me, 

till I watched nearby mortals lose what could not be. 

I saw women hold fragments of cups as they cried, 

as though cradling children who never had died.

I saw men bury rings with a grief so profound 

you would think it was hearts they were placing in ground.

And then . . .
 

I saw a child lose a toy in the dust, 

and discover, in losing, a tenderness thrust

from a place in the soul that awakens through pain— 

for the essence survives when the forms are all slain.

It is that which remains when the taking is done, 

when the world has stripped all but the truth of the one.  

Next -   III. De Carentia et Abundantia