.
There
is a time for gatherings in me,
a
time for severance and loneliness.
The
land is pallid, and here lies empty
what
light once held her fruitful loveliness.
The
leaves have fallen brown and gentle still,
the
trees have shed all their loss and sorrow
and
live blander for it, upon this hill
of
rock where I’ll know my last tomorrow.
The
image of her wrist, stippled by rust,
conjures
memories of sweet yester years,
where
love fills a heart with unmeasured trust,
deep
with the treasured press of lips and tears.
There
is a heaviness within me past,
there
is a laughter clutching tight my chest.
There
is specter who waits for me last,
a
pale heart ceased within a paler breast.
The
wind is crying through the soft grasses,
a
shroud of rain is drifting nearer still -
my
soul trembles not at its cold passes
nor
the deathly archangel’s quiet thrill,
nor
the snow washed down from that higher ledge,
nor
winter’s desolate and fevered storm,
but
like the promise at desire’s edge,
only the thought that my love was once warm.