Browning Revisited
God be thanked. The meanest of his creatures
boasts two soul-sides; one to face the world with,
and one to show a woman when he loves her.Robert Browning
But one true soul-side indeed,
ready for the great open
in the light of the vaguest night.Now he comes through clean bared,
fresh from the shower of love's graces,
brightening under the sudden wash of truth.Self-shriven in this inner shaking
where forthrightly he is stopped dead
naked as the day he first came to.Hit hard upon avowing groins
in his shining tracks, between his eyes,
stooping forth for her own ascending.But how he is now reviled, rejected,
in this grand avowal, one soul-side indeed
missed, in this one certitude of a lifetime.
by Ophelia A. Dimalanta