One Life

In my living years, there came this time,
Where spring has faded like a memory,
Summer's blossoms withered like old skin,
When ever fell the leaves, fell the leaves,
And the augur bells faintly distant chimed.

One day, a stinging breeze in mine eyes pining,
A whispering air—'tis wisdom sweet sad song —
A solemn hymn: "Let goods and kindred go." (1) 
A learning to love as if nothing were my own,
A bending of the will, to autumnal days aligning. 

These stringent days swallow my threadbare soul,
And as the hours gyre the paths that I will take,
Shadows ebb and flow about my wicker frame,
Skin and breath — compass every grace and curse,
The cloth where lament and love make up the whole.

In these waning times, there will be gift of days,
When every kindness is free of fitful grasps.
Life — where love is given and not expected back.
A dying unto living, a journey to places never seen,
'Til broken hearts be overtaken in psalms of praise.
 
One life.





_________
1) From Martin Luther's hymn: A Mighty Fortress is Our God

Hush Nova

Nebular nursery ignite nascent stars,
All burning, burning, tiger bright,(1)
Fiery hunger ever yearns-takes flight,
Inspiring lovers and wagers of wars.

The stars burn bright in lovers eyes,
Scorching nests of sweet communion,
'Til stars and loves dissolve in disunion.
Once a candle lit, it but burns and dies.

Sun shatters —a fiery frore, a dying star —
The fires of hell burn cold like failing love —
Verily sorrowful, the plummeting dove —
Reborn  raven — plumage and pith as tar.

Conflagrant novas fade to inky black,
Singularity where light is locked away,
Soul's bleed silver in rot and in decay,
Love and light woefully fade into lack.

Star light, Star bright, First star,
Remembered and mourned,
In black sky, stone heart,
Cracks.



1. A line adapted from William Blakes: "The Tyger"

Missing

Streams of mists stratus, endless,
Reds, blues conned, from corneas,
Weight of clouds, smother soulless,
Chirps, warbles, silenced in apnea.


Cover of coolness, rage in presence,
Energies strike and leave for dead,
Colorless still, and void the absence,
Pea soup fog, seduced Sol, then fled.
 
Cloudless, sky-less, this empty canvas,
Nor warmth or cold, nor word or breath,
The stars, slaughtered in darkening novas,
Twilight fades, the god mourns Ashtoreth.


A stream, crimson, cupped, to lips, taken,
A stone soul, a name called to awaken.