This Side of the Truth (for Llewelyn)

This side of the truth, / You may not see, my son, / King of your blue eyes / In the blinding country of youth, / That all is undone, / Under the unminding skies, / Of innocence and guilt / Before you move to make / One gesture of the heart or head, / Is gathered and spilt / Into the winding dark / Like the dust of the dead. // Good and bad, two ways / Of moving about your death / By the grinding sea, / King of your heart in the blind days, / Blow away like breath, / Go crying through you and me / And the souls of all men / Into the innocent / Dark, and the guilty dark, and good / Death, and bad death, and then / In the last element / Fly like the stars’ blood // Like the sun’s tears, / Like the moon’s seed, rubbish / And fire, the flying rant / Of the sky, king of your six years. / And the wicked wish, / Down the beginning of plants / And animals and birds, / Water and light, the earth and sky, / Is cast before you move, / And all your deeds and words, / Each truth, each lie, / Die in unjudging love.