Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;
What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?
--Walt Whitman
One love, true sentiment
The reed, dampened,
And a dolce affair
Though a ship direct our course
Over grey and ire.
The bridge of time, our port
And exploring, we wind our hearts
To one life.
Singing, I shall find one note
As the sail hums.
Emily Isaacson
The delicate moment when a new-born’s cry
Crossed the threshold, a minuet:
I was seated, and my purpose sealed,
With joy I marry and am brought near.
The circular purpose of a world
And the stormy islands, unchartered;
A mariner’s compass
To guide our eyes.
Emily Isaacson
My teapot,
Countless pouring and clear diadem,
With invisible planets
of color
In glass solar systems:
They cross overhead, their haloes,
True sons.
And the passengers sit
at the backgammon table,
in shaded summer linen,
A game with numerous
endings,
Silhouetting the realm of chance
and fate
;The sailors, resonant, lithe.
Emily Isaacson