On the Outside Looking In...

 

(on one side of the window the beauty of duty; on the other, desire)

The quote below struck me again with quickening force as I gazed to the out-doors while spring-cleaning my kitchen...

“I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings”

 Helen Keller quotes

Sometimes standing on the outside looking in

Is enough for me

And I let the river of season-beauty

Wash its significance rampantly

Over parts of me that have not yet learned

To inhale then relinquish what cannot be returned

The limb outside my window

Burgeons with the budded croon

And nucleus of summer

Where its dappled shadow-swoon

Will rivet me; awed spectator

Twixt the beauty and the bliss

Spell-bound by the Creator

Of life’s little moment-kiss

And suddenly the outside

Is a robe of searing pain

I am a lonely beggar

Cold and hungry in the rain

As I yearn for the inside

Reaching for the mystic heart

Of something, keen, immortal

Of which earth can have no part

© Janet Martin