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(…)

I am running through golden leaves
With the ghosts of he who grieves:
Chained to my sight, weary to the horizon
Fades in blood what was to be my sun.

This love—the sweetest thorn to taste.
Such flavors as I have embraced.
And still upon my lips is the specter
Of the ache of so divine a nectar.

What presence do we carve of the cold
The unholy shades of the rose of old?
The bleeding hand that grasps the bloom
Is the same which seals the cheerless gloom.
I see my love compared with faceless thine
And wonder which of your love’s faces is mine
In mortal rain that now will wash me
Of the future on the outskirts of your mercy—
The radiance that was, now bitter debris.

The hands of time gave me a Heaven
Whose palaces and shrines now are barren
With the echo of footsteps where you were
Where now the ghosts of tomorrow stir
Visions of a new forever, a sad eternity:
They are the shades of what was not to be
That I see as though within my sight
As though of angels, celestial in flight,
I may grasp as though a flower am I
But like our tomorrow, this is goodbye
And the angels fade before my touch.
Shall I be joyous, or do I ask too much
For but a parting word from out thy heart
Ere thy ships and thy wings depart?

© 2021 Marten Hoyle