Before your birth, then hid it in your heart. No part of you that does not snug and hold and hide The self that you will be if faith abide. What you do is thee. For that I gave you birth. Be that. So be the only you that's truly you on Earth.' Dear Hopkins. Gentle Manley. Rare Gerard. Fine name.
What we do is us. Because of you. For that we came.
THE OTHER ME I do not write The other me Demands emergence constantly. But if I turn to face him much too swiftly Then He sidles back to where and when He was before I unknowingly cracked the door And let him out. Sometimes a fire-shout beckons him, He reckons that I need him, So I do. His task To tell me who I am behind this mask. He Phantom is, and I facade That hides the opera he writes with God, While I, all blind, Wait raptureless until his mind Steals down my arm to wrist, to hand, to fingertips And, stealing, find Such truths as fall from tongues And burn with sound, And all of it from secret blood and secret soul on secret ground. With glee He sidles forth to write, then run and hide All week until another try at hide-and-seek In which I do pretend
