Thirty, Oh Thirty, yes! Your apprenticeship
is over and you have your journeyman's card.
Grasp the cudgel and fill the cup, celebrate your
mad journey, study the tracks on the ground,
reflect on the sky until you are gobsmacked by it all,
and stars are poured at your feet.
Leave the Sea at last behind you.
(You can return to the water when Summer comes again.)
Leave it swaying on its stalk and seek out the River.
Look for the deer's path along the bank -
the deer and wolf's path as well.
Watch the
river follow its destiny, never more or less than
that way between the rock faces ordained .
The sword cuts and the coin buys,
never more than the subject requires.
Angled in the rocks, the tiny plant survives,
Thrives in spite of every other ray of light and raindrop's course.
Seek out the headland's bluff - purple and in motion
toward the sky. Your way now is
proven
by the marigolds along the way and by
the sense of place you now possess.
Range far and wide, but always with a compass
in your heart and good shoes on your feet.
Gather up the roses and press them into wine,
make haste down the rabbit hole, wander under the
tree-whispered moonlight, do all these things without
concern for the simple track, the bird or the salamander,
for the cat's breath on your cheek or the rabbit's claw.
You are full formed now: no tail remains, no gills.
You are in your final state of change and metamorphosis
(as are all things that live).
Let no ghosts haunt or ambling thoughts resist.
You are thirty now.
For Emica
03/05/2016
