Take Me

Take me on your ship,

your ship of the mad,

away from dry land,

away from all these people

so happily lost inside their nothings,

so happily piling their belongings,

gathering in corners like dust and old skin,

a monument to indifference of life's flair.

Take me away into the night's blue horizon

where stars lip the curvature of space,

away from the bottom of this empty ocean

full of hermits in shells of their own making.

Give me a mountain and a doorway

with no hinge; give me fire hot enough to 

transfigure ore, warm enough to keep

this core turning over, and turning over

like a perpetual engine, or a pendulum.... 
Take me from this nonsense, and hand me love.

Give me love that is as simple as a carved wooden

figurine, as clear as a glass of spring water

held to the light; as clean as a pre-industrial, plains night,

central time, the backbone of the universe sprawling

above me, the Milky Way streaking through the pines. Give me 
your heart, let me carve my name on it. Give me 

the courage to hand mine to you. Give me a message in rock to be hewn.

Hand me a writ to care for you. Take me, arms wide: let me be true.