The Outline

This is the outline of my life
Now dark, now bright
The line of things that
Follows all my passage like a
Curving bend, a river bend,
A bending tree - it watches me
Go, the thing, and follows on
As I hold up the sky and
Alternately yawn and cry.
Here I die daily and am
Glad, this roof is not the heavy
One that it once was.  And so
My line is mine, it comes
With my body and my brain
Following on or is it ahead
It goes now fast, now slow
And shows me the way to go
And I follow?  I do not know,
It just is there for me
Everywhere I turn, and I learn
From its dark burn what
I did wrong and what
I must do now to make amends
And make my hands, my arms,
My shoulders bend more easily.
I see it and it sees me
And we like each other
Well-enough, the line of my tree
And me growing in it supply
With my slow and dark
And fast and light I
Plod on after it and faith
My respite, the joining line
That tells me I am done and
I have found my final form
And won the prize - to be
All-seeing heart with eyes
Where all my lines are me
And we are one, wakefully.

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