Unbound

I've been reading a lot of new and different (for me) poets lately. T.S. Eliot, John Donne, and the like. Talk about unattainable heights. This poem is taken, in a way, from Eliot's the Four Quartets. I hesitate to say that, though, because it invariably suggests comparison, which I could neither ask nor want.


Unbound

Thus bound, we are unbound,

in chains as heavy as the sea

waves crashing, foam to ground,

up from a rough eternity,

and in this noisome sound,

that rolls in rush and pound,

unbound are we,

who skitter on the sand

and flail our sodden wings for flight,

to neither lift nor land,

to look down from no greater height.

The dirt calls to the hand,

you are my clay, my sand,

and my birthright,

born in the fires below

that pull the flesh away from bone,

where from a chant runs low,

a pagan rite of blood and stone.

But here, the gentiles know;

the gods that come and go

were always one,

and One who dries the wings,

and sets the shell upon the air,

whose voice, in shouting, sings

whose wretchedness is blessed fair.

These chains are golden rings,

that lift to higher things,

to everywhere.