Portrait of a Puritan

Let him, 
who hangs between two poles 
(approval-disapproval), 
who fits or does not fit 
the occasion according to conscience, 
alone. 

His will is not his own. 
He is the child of cant. 
His ubiquitous parent peers preponderant
and always 
over the rims of thin reading glasses, 
wets an unbending thumb and, 
mumbling an inaudible no, 
turns, once again, to Ecclesiastes. 

Let him alone, friend. 
He dreamed last night of wind and rain and sky.
He thought he heard a wild goose cry,
once, 
in the naked night.