The Girl of the Isles

And every sand becomes a Gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel’s path they shine.
~ William Blake


You, pretty girl, you are all that’s left of a pretty night,
Several months ago when I had nothing to do with that; 
When pretty nights were shining fragmented shimmers
Of adumbral obsidians, hidden gems of the earth – 
You girl are the girl of the isles, 
And I cannot stop swaying with the ocean breeze;
And moonstones dropped like nickels into the Tuscarora Deep,
Are deposits of two plates as tectonic fates enfold
The hands of the beach, the face of Vulcan pealing
Inhuman laughter; and when I look at you, 
I understand the glory of a story well-told. 
You surprise me – and I mean that I am
Surprised when you read my thoughts, even though 
I bury them under dark subterranea – 
The contrast is electric and you breathe my hypethral air,
Studded as starlight deities, gems of airy arabesque,
Diamonds which no sudden refraction obviates, yet I 
Worship them still, and if I do, then my argument stands for you;
I, I the boy and I the man, have borne that religion that 
Drowses me and all the prayers I dare not send. 
Every rock is a cold heart, every cold heart denies itself –
And the constellation of you is my only pelf.
Where, across ungravitated space green stars light up; 
I believe in rested eyes, from whence the undulations undulate
But I do not think that is necessary,
To pluck the rippling dune from some waiflike oasis.
Is it a tasteless jewel, for my pleasure? 
Or is it a pretty foible, for my need?
I hear the melancholy in the circle of your arms, 
I hear the madness in the stride of your legs; you want to keep moving, 
But cannot. I’m not trying to shuffle your tarot personas
But cannot help but want to be imprisoned;
I hear the distraught in whisperings of hair, I hear the gruff in 
Laced up shoes,
They slide and catch, slide and catch on the promontories of
My intentions.
You can hear the barest echoes of simplicity from the cliffs of cause - 
Like snowfall ten thousand feet up, if you put your ear to the wall 
Advaita will speak its profundities. The Atma is but an arithmology
Of the Brahman equation; whereby prặmanas shall be gained 
From my guru, the maelstrom of malcontent. 
What to say to the girl of the isles who has 
All she reasons she desires on her island? 
If you are my doubt, then what is my philosophy?
Is not philosophy the science of doubt, of questioning?
But I have you for that, so there is no need to inquire 
Of the world its worldliness. Only if it asks me too, 
Which it does not, and only if you ask me not to,
Which you do; here I go besides: 
The tendons of the earth are my tendons, their arteries
My arteries, their highways my aortic destiny, snapping
And conflating to the eddying verve of a vast system 
That defies its boundaries. 
What would you do, if I told you
You are the system; you are the waterspout of the 
Grid, of coordinates Unknown, where cartography intersects 
Self-knowledge, while my poetry attempts the un-attemptable?