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(…)

I see the sun o’er fields of gold,
As it rose in days of old,
When, perfumed, the leaves silently fell,
And Truth was too great a burden to tell.

What brought sailing to this poison sky
The woe and illness of goodbye?
A shadow has passed for he who grieves
With tears of dew bejeweling the leaves

In the wind where once they were seen,
In echoes of the worlds that lie between
What is, what was, and what never shall be,
All I once held passes silently.

What becomes of their flesh and bone
As I view this dying sunrise, alone,
And see, through the tears in my eyes,
These shadows denied their paradise?

What wounds are open in my heart
As I watch their forms depart
On to shores in neither sky nor sea,
Their voices never to return to me?

What love yet dwells, dwells in pain.
When, when shall we meet again?
In the stars, are we nothingness?
Naught more than voids, and loneliness?

And there shall be no feast for storms.
In the dawn mist I see the forms
Of they who bear the selfsame flame
That birthed the ashes they became.

And as I weep, my heart in vain
Calls to the dead in their domain.
I kiss the sunrise, and by that shine
See beyond kingdoms of the divine,

Some faraway land beyond the veil
To which their fading ships set sail.
And I cannot bear to see them go,
To lands where I cannot follow.

The sun is rising o’er fields of gold
As it rose in days of old.
None remember, save wind and sky
And those with such wings as can fly.

© 2021 Marten Hoyle