When the steady, monochrome rain
turned the often choppy bay
into a barren plain
and the ducks and geese lay low
drifting, ruffling, dripping
in some abandoned cove
while the deer wandered, sipping heavenward
Time brushed by me in passing,
and this, his indiscretion, stirred
a presentiment of trespassing here-
tuned to an unknown, irregular frequency
lost when the world runs clear-
but for one moment stolen between eternity
and now.
An unexcavated strength,
Veins extracting their toll,
Forms in the deepest, darkest holes,
The abandoned mines of broken-down souls
Possessed by the weakest parts of the whole-
Strength that screams
With foamy lips never dry
At unseen ghosts in black skies,
Weeping for the strangers hobbling by,
Dreaming of consciousness as a closing eye-
Strength still, that looks,
And in looking, sees
All that is and should not be,
The kind of madness compelling, “Flee!”
And all perceived chants agreement-
And in the sweat, the sorrow, and the mud,
The hunger, the loss, the burn of chains,
In thirst, in isolation, in condemnation
The strength tarries-
The soul remains.
And when you loved me, what you loved
Existed in your eyes
It was as real as love is real,
Unconstrained by guise
And what you saw as good in me
Bloomed gossamer in your view
I was good and I was yours-
It was true because you were true.
And when you left me vulnerable
Exposed to harsher winds,
The good and true you gave to me
Could no more make amends
With the whip of gale, and bite of cold,
And absence of your devotion
Who I reflected in your eyes
Wept and died as broken
And the woman standing in her place
Who speaks vengeance in her scorn
Is just the dried and dead remains;
The blossomless tangle of thorns.
When your diverted love ran dry
And you no longer looked at me,
All you loved in me the most
Ceased to be.
viewingcamelot 