I Would Only Paint Your Shadow

I would only paint your shadow
With the tears of the willow.
Trailing soft the twilight
Of my every breath and day.

A gossamer canvas wed sky to tempest:
Silhouette of stars in distant corners
Of a lone sea that sighs into the final sail
Of phantoms who seek no horizon—

Eyes shining in the shade—so beautiful,
Silk rain off the shores of the moon's fragile beams,
Diamond specter; angel newborn at the tomb;
Soaring like a swan to the Eden between my dreams.

There is the ghost of a light, skyward rising,
A cloud in the shape of a rose, blushing by sunset.
'Neath a broken cross, the lightning calls my name—
The thunder replies—a heartbeat in the blackened Heaven.
I walk a road of seraphim in the exodus of day.
In the distance, an island of dew

Between the snows and the flowers,
Among the graves and valleys rich with life;
Between the oasis and the everglade;
A voice offers a lullaby of days gone by.
And in the rise and fall of the melody,
Between the birdsong and the sun,
Dressed in dawns of years to be
You and I will meet the day
With the kiss of the morning stars.

(C) 2018 Marten Hoyle