The Pilgrimage: Part 23 / Phillip Neal Tippin

Not in reference only
But in love’s solidity.

Beauty 
When glimpsed
Admixed
Cut by the touch
Of its turning,
Away.

A Sunday gathering for 
The toasting of the eighth.
   9 Feb. 2020

Simplicities unbacked by 
Difficulties
Must be something else 
Entirely.

A man may 
Weep what he sows,
Reap in its throws.

At the transfiguration—
The terror, 
The touch.

Saddled with freedom’s harness
Spurred by bit and bridle, 
Lathered hocks rock ridden, 
rider, conspire with the buck 
And plunge til the unmatched pair
Pile to dust, but the mare, left with
A blank, bareback, quivering stare.

The coast of the mind
Must face the rollers
To find the buried stone,
But they don’t stop coming.

All poetry and supplementary material: copyright 2020-2021 by Phillip Neal Tippin. All rights reserved.