Primrose

The Ancient Modern

Primrose  /  Joshua Alan Sturgill

Once and now
on NM Highway 52, between 
Cuchillo Peak and Truth 
or Consequences, I passed

beneath a profligate Primrose 
hanging from a heat-baked bridge.
Its leggy, sprawling vines as full
of adobe-white flowers as the sky

is full of silence.  A primrose 
is the pivot of the universe; 
joined on its rim, the sun and I circle
opposite, below and above, on

the highway and the blue ecliptic.
Time is a place; space is a moment.
The single world is a sacred bowl filled
with light as with holy water; a primrose 

is its rantistirion soaked in blessings.  
Extension draws back into itself.  
And the lengths of all journeying
is just a standing still 

to receive benediction, head bowed, 
arms folded over my heart.  I see
time and motion and necessity, 
matter and light and ranks of stars: 

my fellow travellers.  Heat-haze 
rising from the road, music announcing 
the Great Return, mountain buttresses 
of the cosmic Temple: you and I know 

           this is the house of God
          this is the gate of Heaven.
The angels’ ladder is a Primrose
hanging from a heat-baked bridge

All poetry and supplementary material: copyright 2021 by Joshua Alan Sturgill. All rights reserved.