Immeasurable

All that I cannot give you, surely
is much greater than all that I know
yet these are without manufacture
and have come to a shelf - a silent place
by nature for years, as testament to history
which with I give you, the whole of my hands
and futures to remember how life folds
gently back and again returns into itself




* * *
A few words from a real man:

"Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded
with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation,
it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and
naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me."

~ From: Song of Myself, Walt Whitman