These lines made me write them early last Christmas morning, while still half asleep in bed… they still seem entirely relevant and quite difficult to improve upon, so I offer them again this holiday season, having added only exactly one word. Warmest hopes and thanks to all readers. 🙂

It is the question you cannot ask which matters
The axiom you must never scutinize

You fancy you are probing the swirling cosmos
with discernment and courage and gumption

Why lovers falter at some subtle instant
Why intrepid truth warriors secret their flaw
How to the west it is Fear which derails them
And in the east how Pride clouds their knowing

Find the middle and make of your suffering
an organ for sensing

I love women, but feminists less so
Till they see we are each other’s harvest
For in the truest boy intuition is feminine
And masculine in the truest girl
And surely once we walked in each other’s bodies
And since man’s mysterious fall
only one Being on earth has recombined them

I am fondled by science, but they cannot study
Themselves
It is their law and they know not it’s Name

And I am seduced by technicians and have practiced technique
But is it not all the tempter’s distraction?
Why else did Zeus rue that Prometheus found flame
And what have we made these thousands of years
save for our convenience and amusement
save for feeding the hunger of merchant and purchaser

Yes, I honor too the buyer and the seller
But we cannot be free
Till each selling is a gift of kind service
And each buying a humble acceptance
And till money transubstantiates into egoless collaboration

And I break bread with the athiests and religionists
I count your honored seeking among my friendships
But please do not think matters concluded
Keep waiting
That the skeptic would examine his self-concealed faith
And the believer peer into his own or received interpreting

Would you know truth, you must feel it and taste it
with grace only grace
softly crucifying your wishing
from your heart from your tongue from your waiting

Would you feel beauty deeply, eschew not pure thinking
Taking pains to hold aside your favorite thoughts
And let cook in your perceiving: love

Would you be intrepid, and audacious as befitting the hour
Then marshal your forces
To plainly know and notice
How each thought enters your sphere
Make a sacred place where you know yourself
As impartial gatekeeper

_______RS

NOTE: If interested, you can have a look at the original 2017 intonation here: (link)