starlit time

 no accident of language catches quite

the changing shades of meaning that reflect

not what is said but what we could reject

if well presented to our proper sight

but when we take as given in due right

and not as secrets of some hidden sect

they are the matters we have truly checked

and we are lost deep in the summer night

yet no one wonders at the altered state

nor at the clash of symbols that is seen

by those few waking through the starlit time

eager  to find a different sort of fate

but not to learn just what it ought to mean

nor yet the purpose of the long hard climb