With Every Fine and Subtle Sense Perceive
by Elizabeth Barrette

With Every Fine and Subtle Sense Perceive
– inspired by “When All My Five and Country Senses See” by Dylan Thomas

When all my sixth and second senses reach
Beyond the limits set by mortal mass,
I’ll view what eyes can’t see, and I will teach
What hands can’t touch, and laughing let them pass.
I’ll stop to smell the roses of the gods,
And lick the flavors from ambrosial clouds.
I’ll juggle quantum cats, and mock the odds,
My mind freed from my brain’s chimeric shrouds.

The music of the spheres, like summer rain,
Flows in one hear and out the other hear.
The visions of the past and future drain
Into one limpid lake no eye can near.
My hairs stand up because they cannot pull
Their roots and walk away across my skin.
They do not understand that I am full
And drunk on everything I’m drinking in.

I do not need a chemical assist
To watch the world release and melt away,
Its certainties a blur of changing mist –
I only have to turn to it and say,
I’m taking off the frame,  then step aside.
The concept’s clear, but letting go is hard.
Reality is only one mind wide;
It takes some practice, letting down your guard.

We walk along the boundaries and blend
With those who are companions on our path.
The journey is the truth, and has no end;
Emotion has no logic, nor faith, math.
Awake, we find our way; asleep we grope.
Not even precognition knows this goal;
We only stumble toward it, and we hope
That trading hearts will someday make us whole.

I may not know it all, but this believe:
If we can lose ourselves enough, we will
With every fine and subtle sense perceive
What hidden, holy message lingers still.
It’s love that sees, although the eyes are closed;
It’s kindness that allows us to enmesh.
Forget the organs, mute and indisposed:
The soul is sensual, though framed by flesh.


This poem was originally published in Sybil's Garage magazine #5.  It was written for an unrelated project that involved starting with a famous poem and giving it a mystical slant.

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