A Bad Fit

My soul is too big
for my body - 
squeezed-in to a too small space
that said: 'vacancy, apply within',
all the light and airy 
thing of it entered, inflated, 
and tires me with its burning
and its ardour -
it makes me work too hard
is burdensome. 

My body machinery 
can't hold it in forever -
imprisoned here it makes
my blood race delirious,
desirous 
to be free in its
former communality, 
its flying speed and hover,
not staid and trapped in me -
form unwinged and singular
that stalks this too-dry 
earth on land-locked legs.

This place I walk upon
creaking with its weight 
makes me old before my time 
my energy drained.
It talks to them -
I hear it clearly in discussion
and sometimes it raises me
to see with its sight, breathe its air ... 
once there I drift free 
of my locked cell - anchoress 
bricked in place -
my time here opaque but blessed 
with intermittent sight, by knowledge 
and a mind awake
to eternity and purpose.

My body is a cobbled thing:
struts of wood, 
bolts and threads,
turbines, shafts, cogs and wheels
keep the whole thing
moving ...

but it, with its brightness
and its ease, knows 
the place from whence it came
and out of me
it yearns for it
in my name.

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