Windows To the World

Disappearing like the straggling stars
of morning, all the discontent of winter
fades before the multifarious data
streaming from the light-filled cupola above.
It funnels into every mind, resisted only
by that most persistent ignorance
selected with our daily bread.

There are those few incisive revelers
who celebrate the windows in the cupola,
who love the vastness of a universe
gone strange.  They are the ones who
stand apart from all the marionettes
who feed on green reward,
who dance among the pleasure domes
of Kublai Kahn.

How strange, indeed, to make a choice
that spites the madding crowd,
that takes a curious joy from any
sober judgment by the hound of heaven--
that kindly beast who leads
where multitudes decline to follow.
That is the course of neverland,
the beat of saints and of angelic hosts
of art yet to be shaped,
of philosophic insight yet too far advanced
to understand.

All right.  It is too much of fantasy.
Some work remains, even to speculate
that such romance could ever be desired,
beyond the carmelcorn, the Croesis fellowship,
the manufactured lusts.

For there are the ingredients to feed the soul.
Just behind those lavish windows lies
not only consolation, but
the challenge of a paradise that offers up
its heart within the mine
to every prospecter for truth.
       ~