Symphoniya de Toska BOOK ONE: PREVIEW: "AFTERLIVES"

SYMPHONIYA DE TOSKA BOOK ONE: COMING THURSDAY JANUARY 19TH FROM WHEELSONG BOOKS.


“Afterlives”

What is this now that I have closed my eyes?
My tears birth a Stygian flood.
What lights have gathered beyond the waves?
These winds, bearing the sighs of promises
We may have kept are weeping with souls.

And from amid the cries, you come to my side.
Such lament as you sing wakens an unknown pain.
Be not silent! Sing your woes that I may ache
As with life; fragile and dreaming:
Such woe as binds your fetters to my own.
Had we met when I was alive,
I may have lived forever.
Now, too late, there is eternity.

What are we to become in this Ever After?
Is a second death waiting beyond our afterlives?
My heart seems pierced anew with melody.
In the tomb’s silence there is a sudden song
That breathes through your voice in the dark.
I never knew I could seek such a rose
As withers on your still and silent breast.

O! To be born again, forbidden by time,
To taste of such fruits as grow from our graves,
And find the pain that mirrors mine:
Some comfort to express the years of our demise.
Let us walk together a while among the leaves
That eternal fall within the wasteland.
I wish to hear your tale of times before
My hand lay waiting on the Other Side.

Here, there are no goodbyes…
And tomorrow never rises.
Let us walk for today
Through this sigh amid the branches—
Forever and anon to lose our yesterdays
Until no-one remembers when we walked
Below the mortal sky.

© 2023 Marten Hoyle