O Master

---

O Master

Poem

The long lonely roads of many lives I have trod,
Innumerable bodies worn by works and cast aside,
The vitals grotesque and noble assumed and endured
And minds like little lamps guarded through the night.
Ancient as the mountains of lore solemn and mute
Is my body, cycled through soil and flower and bird;
Dumb and damp I have borne the rains and deluge,
I have climbed through the plant to peer at Thy sun
In a bright flower-face with a little incense mined from sand.
I have sailed the winds and watched the lands for Thee,
Voiced my bird-calls in distant climes for Thy answer.
A pick-axe mind I have carried to Thy mountain quests,
Chipped minuscule fragments and built caverns wide
Labouring over lives with toil the ages cannot measure.
Dawns and sunsets innumerable from alien shores I gazed
Counting the moments like a hermit his circle of beads.
Thy million names to my tongue grew native and fluent,
In my mind are grooves carved with Thy remembrances,
The rhythm of Thy thoughts shape the corridors and halls
Of my heart echoing still the savour of Thy memory. 
And now Thou comest inscrutable like a wordless idea
Unbodied and unseizable like a mist of heaven upon me.
Nearer than the I, Thou art lodged in a secret sacred chamber
Awaiting the hour of my ripening to a perfect blue tint.
Till then I clamber with all the limbs of my becoming
And mouth a hundred voiceless obeisances to Thee, O Master.