The Organ

“The Organ”

What am I in your eyes?
I am neither beauty nor reality.
Give me time to think it over—
This thing called eternity.

There are tears in the back of my mind,
Weeping to know which is the mirage—
The dream that we call Today’s Finest Sun.
Perhaps my thoughts are just as real as you?
Wilt thou forgive me? I am no lie!
This I know, but I have no knowledge
As to whether what stands behind me
Can be seen before I turn to meet your gaze.

There is an old man who walks beside me,
He is chained to the youth living inside me—
I do not know if he will ever walk away.
He seems to think fondly of you.
I see ye twain in orchards by twilight
When I will be a shade of what he was
The youth, dead in my arms on the horizon
And you will be lovely as ever before,
Though, of course, this you will not see,
And I will wonder if this has been a dream.

Hold me as though I’m dying in my sleep—
I’ll pretend your touch is there.
There are rooms in my heart
Where no man has stood before.
Even I dare not enter
Because of what I may find,
Such an organ plays a melody
I long to silence.
If I tell it, “Be still!”
Will the organ cease?
Then, in the quiet of those chambers
I fear I may find you.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle