Classic Poem

" Agrimony for melancholy...
Borage to banish fear...
Fenugreek for full flesh...
Yarrow for wounds by iron...
Amanita, the death-cap...
Mandrake ... They are all here, "

the White Witch notes. And again
(with a certain cogency):
" If here is the leaf of death,
hasn't life its leaf? " (She is seeking,
like a Ponce de Leon,
the sprig of immortality.)

" " Hope is a thing ..." Why not
pleasure, courage, belief,
love? Or are those so rare
some reverse-amanita can't
summon them from thin air
into a root or leaf?

And whether thereby we push
spirit out of the world, or push
matter out of the world,
who cares — if naught's left un-
accounted for, if it happen
God Himself is a Burning Bush? "











By permission of the author.