The Japanese Torii

 

The Japanese Torii—the gates

to sacred groves and gardens

piously and ever gently touch

with a tap of a virtuoso musician

 

into the old wisdom that knew

that each letter is a gate

that calls in its own chosen

to come, to pass, and to find

 

their true selves behind

and so to become a part

of a line, a necklace

Fates and spirits weave,

 

just as the reverse is true too—

that each letter, when grasped

and more deeply understood,

is likewise such a gate to God,

 

a sign, a note by which the soul

is moved or even cloaked in splendor,

a delicately open entrance to a temple

or even into a chrysalis, crystal, pupa

 

of a divine gaze by which the soul

is winged and let to meet at last

with those seeing pupils

where what is eternal lives

 

on the other side—across.

And you too could see

how by these temples

and nature’s designs

 

the light has come

to hang and loiter

in the rustling leaves

and how in the Fall

 

all that lightweight glow

descends and then—

when no one else

keeps on watching—

 

some of it begins

to stir and soar and flutter

aloft—like a music played

in a swirl of sudden breeze,

 

just as these Torii—the gates

are here our anchors and,

suddenly, then are our sails

attaching us or the letter of yours

 

or mine—back heavenward, to the divine.