Symplokē: When Two Lines are Joined

It is a making, a shaping, a creative act.

Two powers are set against each other, pulling, straining – what shall be done with them?

Men say: the mind alone thinks.
I say: the body too is knowing.

Shall intelligence wait until the breath is drawn?
Shall it kindle only when the child is born?
No! it is there at the beginning, hidden in the blood, hidden in the bone.

For growth itself is a trial, a weaving, a work of cunning.
The same fire that later burns in the head burns first in the shaping of flesh.
And where two lines are joined, the fire may falter or blaze.

Some unions break, some hold.
Yet in the houses of kings, no cry is heard.
Why? Because their seed remembers.
Because in them is a strength of forming,
a wisdom in the marrow,
a power that reconciles difference,
that makes harmony from the clash.