Posted by Paul Woods in the dust and leaves gathered in the courtyard, You are there, alone with the doves, From the secret shadows of the place I watch The patterns in the courtyard move From my secret place in deeper shades, (ii) I look back across
on 3/19/2002, 10:44 pm
Days of Water and Doves
(i)
The bright syllables of water
arch and fall back, follow curves of air.
Bent words splutter back to life
where sparrows tread and the gilded fly
all, all consummate, but not us.
their muted sooth
and swift, soft movements of their necks.
falls of light on your hair spilling
over your shoulder and the bloom of your breast.
true to the ancient guidance of the stars,
only my adulation is unwavering.
I reach to caress your slender silver soul.
My lady of the water and the day of doves.
Here at the year's turning, in the darkest hours,
earth stunned with cold,
when birds fall unheeded in the night,
I seem now at the end to which I've always moved;
when the fountain's tongues are stilled,
doves croon for warmth
and snow drifts into corners of the yard.
the bleak Atlantic reaches of my life
to remember the desolations of before
but see only the sunlit miles
of snowfilled shires lie fulgent
in the long low winter light.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread