IT

by Roy K Austin
(Dorset England)

It transmutes its life into this, my friend
and this is it, this sunlit plain,
it is that dark cloud that appears above,
it is the nervous buffalo -
it takes fright in them, yet it is
the lightning and the thunder,
it steps out of its own way
or is trampled and torn asunder,
and after - in the distance, when it is gone,
it is the silence, my friend
and my waking thought, that all is one ;
it burns now as stars up there
and sees itself through my tired eyes -
allows us to be what we are not;
from the depth and the greatest span
I say to you my friend,
it is the spirit that sleep-walks as man.
.....