Mingled Being

31 August 2022

What is it that calls for children?
Why do women weep to see their offspring
leap through flowers? I suspect it is
like that which summons poetry,
what one has called "the unreserve of mingled being."
Hear now how the many voices speak
of loved camaraderie,
as though this be essential to their frame.
I do not know what calls if not
enticement to the game of mixture,
turning one and one to something more.
The dance is waiting ere we learn it,
blending what presents with what we are.
So travel cautiously. Beware the swamps
that pull things down. Avoid the soggy
groundless ground. Instead recall
the energy of youth, and how your mother wept.
They were not tears of pity, no, of joy,
to see herself in you, of you, with you.
And mingled with you, Being, in its full array of flowers,
alive to tell.