Robert Duncan

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow



as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,

that is not mine, but is a made place,


that is mine, it is so near to the heart,

an eternal pasture folded in all thought

so that there is a hall therein


that is a made place, created by light

wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.


Wherefrom fall all architectures I am

I say are likenesses of the First Beloved

whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.


She it is Queen Under The Hill

whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words

that is a field folded.


It is only a dream of the grass blowing

east against the source of the sun

in an hour before the sun's going down


whose secret we see in a children's game

of ring a round of roses told.


Often I am permitted to return to a meadow

as if it were a given property of the mind

that certain bounds hold against chaos,


that is a place of first permission,

everlasting omen of what is.

Robert Duncan