"Whose single glance .."

   Perhaps causality was a
   way of uniting god with
   laughter?

But supposing I had chosen to march on you
Instead of on such a star - what then?
Instead of this incubus of infinite duration,
I mean to say, whose single glance
Brings loving to its knees?

Yes, wherever the ant-hills empty
Swarm the fecund associations, crossing
And recrossing the sky-pathways of sleep.
We labor only to be relatively
Sincere as ants perhaps are sincere.
Yet always the absolute vision must keep
The healthy lodestar of its stake in love.

You'll see somewhere always the crystal body
Transparent, held high against the light
Blaze like a diamond in the deep.
How can a love of life be ever indiscreet
For even in that far dispersing city today
Ants must turn over in their sleep.

Lawrence Durrell

Selected Poems

Peter Porter, editor

Solange 

   [extracts]

op. cit.