To Live

We both have our hands to give Take mine I shall lead you afar I have lived several times my face has changed With every threshold I have crossed and every hand clasped Familial springtime was reborn Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow Death and the betrothed The future with five fingers clenched and letting go My age always gave me New reasons for living through others For having the blood of man other's heart in mine Oh the lucid fellow I was and that I am Before the pallor of frail blind girls Lovelier than the delicate worn moon so fair By the reflection of life's ways A trail of moss and trees Of mist and morning dew Of the young body which does not rise alone To its place on earth Wind cold and rain cradle it Summer makes a man of it Presence is my virtue in each visible hand Only death is solitude From delight to fury from fury to clarity I make myself whole through all beings Through all weather on the earth and in the clouds Through the passing seasons I am young And strong for having lived I am young my blood rises over my ruins We have our hands to entwine Nothing can ever seduce better Than our bonding to each other a forest Returning earth to sky and the sky to night To the night which prepares an unending day.