Alchemy

When you read this, I want you to feel the branch beneath you
Swell like a ship on a great grey mane of wind.
I want you to feel your blood pound even in your teeth
As you run and run and run bareheaded in the cold winter sunlight.
I want your hands to understand cool silky streams,
Your fingers to know the keys beneath them
As sonatas glisten and stumble past
And Mozart turns over in his grave.

When you read this, I want your heart to burst
For scarlet and purple,
Wuthering Heights by flashlight,
Sun poured sideways in the grass,
The touch of a beloved hand.

When you read this, have compassion on a poet's ineffectual alchemy,
For Life transmuted to these lines of print retains but
The faintest flicker of a pulse; still,

When you read this,
I want you to feel with me,
See with me,
Run in the wind with me.

When you read this,
I want you to know.