“If Not Here and Now”

“If Not Here and Now”

If not here and now, then when and where?
The elephant’s tusk and dust, their meaning clear,
Declare themselves in certain urgencies that do not register as fear,
But majesty and certitude. Principals are everywhere
And conscious. If the elixir is time, the air,
And place are so much the lessers to delicate atmospheres
And periodic lethal effigies of spirit. Ears
Dine on sentiments, rust in spare
Moments scattered through the memory just as in a sonnet
Recapitulations of majesties and wondrous wonder  rhyme with ramifications
Primed, these! the badge and banner of everlasting transformations
Of fire and ice, evolutions common to a passing comet,
Gaia knows whereof I speak in abstracts that we both know;
The gods had turn to stone e’en before their suns had yearned to glow.