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(…)

Tempt me not with thy embers…
Still now my heart remembers
Perfumes such as ambrosia bore:
And the dreadful End told before
By lips too weak to tremble, to hold
The twilight of a tale untold.

Tempt me instead with thy despair,
Such, such is the shadow that I bear:
The presence woven delicately
By what tears we shed secretly
From eyes blinded by the sight
Of the peace we dream by night.

Ask which breath tasted the sweetest
Beyond the reaches of the mist
When we from ashes were built
As of flowers doomed to wilt.
Thee, I took thee from the garden…
And for a time, my sins forgotten,
I relished such doom I felt was thine,
Knowing not the ashes all were mine.

Funerary, the notes now float
From the bell’s silver throat.
Say, I beg, say what is meant to be:
That these embers are for me.

© 2021 Marten Hoyle