Sometimes I wonder why we try to prove

Sometimes I wonder why we try to prove, You with your silence and I with my speech, That we have found a further faith than love.

Sometimes I wonder why we try to reach, You with closed eyes and I with straining sight, A deeper cavern, a more distant beach

Than those we knew before we sought a light Too pale and stern for mortal fashioning, Before we sought to find the infinite.

Sometimes I wonder why we do not bring A smaller chain upon our spirits need Than a rejection of life’s blossoming.

Sometimes I wonder why we do not heed Our hearts’ disdained entanglements of song, With banished beauty, singing through a reed

To show the loveliness where we belong; Till in the strength of our recaptured weakness, We burn the empty freedoms of the strong.