The barkeep and I at the counter beneath the shimmering mirror,
watching smoky cirrus clouds drift under the tavern eaves.
Moved deeply, we hold our breath together, absorb the singer
who has wrung his heart out for the crowd, and no one leaves.
But now he thanks us all, packs up his gear and cannot linger,
while we are wondering at what the Master Weaver weaves.

“You know,” the barkeep remarked, “I would wager that our Mother
wrote the songs he sings for his percentage that my charges cover.”

I have no argument with the keep and find him quite agreeable –
through him into the frameless looking glass I seem to see
wherein reflections fascinate and are entirely responsible
for any glint of light that might be shed secondhand by me.
In the Mother’s heart, was not this all this art foreseeable,
which she gave me freely when she bounced me on her knee?

In my tomb, I will never know, should you pay a visit there.
In a womb I will ever grow until the day I die within Meher.

The apron-man appears, his bright eyes gleaming,
gives me “one on the house” with pleasure,
and asks of the man sitting beside me what he’s reading.
“I’ve been looking at these poems on the counter
which this one has been cluttering with his scribbling –
I can’t make heads or tales of them!” he replies with censure.

The keep remarks, “Is this admission some confession
that you hope at least one of us will take as criticism?”