Pilgrims

Let us be kind to one another
pilgrims of the forest star
guiltless and spinning
yet tilted as if false in part

have you not a body like mine?
your brain...
is it not your flesh reaching
into the supple mind?

O that against the caos
and the delimiting fixity of convention
I might be born anew
in this very body of mine

that I might love...
(are we all not lovers
to the very marrow of us?)
without reason other than love suggest

what pretence we make
as to all our pain so seriously we take
and would pay a debt with untimely grave
or callous the heart with numbing hate

such as it is needn't be
these vicious circles are not destiny
the answer is not hidden
you exist
or do you---believe?