What is the nature
                   of quintessence?
Since there is no answer,
                          the question
must be poetical.
                  Yet when Aristotle writes,
"A spirit
          in the body of the seed
whose nature answereth
                       in proportion
to the element of the stars,"
                              I could touch that
with a fingertip
                 and be content.

Can wit sigh,
              "Ah, how lovely that is!"?
(that was my inbreath,
                       not my logic)
and have a tear
                in its eye for it?

Out of the way,
                wit!
I am within a breath
                      of affinity
and yearn
          for long distances.

Come out, my lamb,
                   my mystery.
This spirit
            you can trust.

Carl Rakosi