Your body is the gate (sestina)

To travel much in time and not in space
Is harder than the pilgrim's wandering lot
Choose any country for your company's base
The funds will be your first and biggest gate
Your life, there comes a point you must oblige
Or miss the ferryman and his sweet yacht

Forty years of winds have brought this yacht
Your purity has bought for it a space
It will not stay for asking or oblige
You must take the decision, cast your lot
Say no protective chants, approach the gate
Take off your clothes, step naked on the base

When you are whole, your heart's your only base
Green waters close around you, vanished yacht
Your trembling truth is all the paltry gate
But that's enough to point you to a space
Use everything you know, embrace your lot
Be tender and be strong, be true, oblige

Devote yourself, vow that you will oblige
The stranger at the door who seems so base
Your candlesticks of gold may be his lot
But ethics and self-care your nimble yacht
YOU MUST LEARN TO SING -- send into space
Vibration which itself becomes the gate

Commitment to yourself reveals the gate
It asks that you your yearnings soft oblige
Hold nothing back from love's fresh-flowering space
A tender heart knows nothing can be base
When nourished, you become a straight swift yacht
Coursed true in mildest winds, or stormy lot

Integrity is now your faithful lot
You must obey the secrets of your gate
This, even if it means you lose the yacht:
Reveal your thoughts, grace all whom you oblige
The gods will send sweet partners for your base
And for your inmost heart, a husband's space

Your body is the gate you must oblige
To stretch a lot, touch, kiss, and stride is base --
This yacht is your sole chariot through space