Song of the Drunken Shepherd

Drinking      straight          from

 

The Light

 

      The Light

 

gushing

 

into wine-

 

               y air,

 

                                forgetting itself

 

                     This wine

 

            Whoa,

 

the trees                     

                                are drunk,  swaying          teetering

drunk with leaves,         reeling branches,         high,       

as             hands

 

reaching 

            for a staggering lover

rising          nakedly        barely standing beside this tree

                                  rising            to bring wine to the horizon-

                                            tal lips

 

of time and desire

 

to pour                    time and desire

 

down the lips                            of time and desire

 

           O

 

thank you, my love, your

 

               Light,

 

                                    This wine, this...

 

            O

 

   let me rest beneath the light-

headed trees,  drunk

I need my sleep,     slipping down

let me sleep this short while below

my head aglow

          amidst all these wobbling hills

like a shepherd who dreams

he is a lover... better,   a saint             sleeping as his flock

of desires

          of their own find their way

into the pen fold

of God

to be shorn of their wool-

                              y desires

 

and turned to gold,        spun into cloth

while this shepherd wanders hills

of dreams

 

so alive

this passion

in which God          is stumbling drunk

at the bottom of despair

the image of

 

desire             pouring            from the barrel of sky

branches,               their pour done, empty as this flask

    refilled with countless branches                  pouring and pouring

they pine                     to touch           to reach

the luminous horizon 

that won't stop spinning

 

let me drink beneath these trees         then sleep

in the knowledge                    in which all things live

 

let me sleep                    and find peace

let me write a poem

in honor of the sun- 

            no, wine...no, both.

I think there will be                 Many poems   today 

beside my flocks

 

that will                       forever increase

as i drink

straight from the light,

my love