Then a man pours outward – a poem by Riley Mulhern

Then a man pours outward
            
And may be measured by his glories: 
the sudden stillnesses that solder 
 
blood and spirit and unbroken space
when we know, or think we know, heaven’s
 
secret ripplings from that hill-top 
Transfiguration, where proud men flung 
 
their faces in the dirt. Importance, 
but also hope: the sleepless longing
 
and the quick glory that exceeds us
as in love’s unforeseen opening
 
to our unsolved past, ready to bear
the pain that does not belong to us,
 
ongoing loss reaching out behind 
like a thread. The earth must first receive
 
the plow’s blade: then a man pours outward
bared and blinking, yet not diminished. 

Riley Mulhern is an engineer and a research scientist. He writes poetry because it makes him more alive.