Fontevrault

“Fontevrault”
 
Lend me your soul, my imprisoned wings.
What cell holds your laurels on so fair a grave?
The distant song whispers in ruin on that sacred place
Where enshrined by chains our caress is seen no more.
They say they saw him climb the wall of roses,
By such sacred thorns, I long to remove my heart
As kissed his blood, to find him among the angels
While mutely such a cry rattles in my strangled throat.
 
The flowers he touched, condemned to be my idols,
Bloom where once he walked, weary with beauty.
Alas! our memories end where he lies buried,
While I remember too well the prison of our faith
Where alas! that the chain is broken, and I must sing
Of my freedom—a lament for he who was all.
My voice becomes the walls wherein he dwells—
Escaping into confinement beyond the wilted stars.
 
Was every life as long as such a day as this?
I am slain by his twilight, though yet in the dawning
Of he whose sun showered this ache upon the roses
That shall wither upon the morrow that finds me
Beneath the sorrow of his missing Heaven.
If life is but a day, I long for the setting sun
Still hours away from my window
Where I may walk the night beneath him.
 
© 2022 Marten Hoyle