From I.O.U., Wim’s new book of poems, available at Amazon.com.

written for the dedication
of the William S.E. Coleman Studio Theatre,
June 18, 2016

But were you ever really here?
Did you sit here brooding upon this cave’s sullen lip
gazing over the bay of doves,
a shrouded exile from lies and war and treachery,
holding your worlds within?
Did you come away from Athens to this dead heart,
its throbbing chambers long since stilled and petrified,
its arteries and veins drained of their wine?
And were you ever really here?

This clay shard with letters of your name proves nothing.
Your acolytes came here seeking you;
finding nothing but an empty cave,
they wrote your name upon a bowl
and drank from it in prayer
and sang your verses to these deaf damp walls.
Your acolytes were fools
not to pass on through these walls of fog
into joys deeper than woe, time higher than thought;
for there is no firmament above our heads;
the starry void goes on forever;
our lives do not.

Let’s go away
and carry our riches to an empty room
that bears your name upon its door,
a space that’s rough, immediate, and holy,
where dreamers walk and dance
and sing their dreams awake to one another,
where sacred lies and probabilities abound,
where stories are told and worlds transfigured,
where stone chambers of the heart turn flesh again
pulsing with the sweet wine of eternity,
most terrible and gentle to us all.