September 26, 2008

Man's Heart Hath Thorns
























This flinching man
Hath thorns deep in the heart.
His defense from the many
Coquettish daphne driving them in,
Is that of a neighbor's dog
Playing Dead across the yard.
Thorns thus embedded are likely
Talons arresting life into death.

Flinching man,
Macrocosmos of man,
You escaped to the south
Seeking refuge in the run.
Indoors and in piles of wires
And cords, in work, out of work.
Last I heard you were swimming in a pool;
I am in a Charybdis uncleansed.
I am stuck with reason.
What seperates men from animals-
What treasure?
What nightly terror?

Awaking from a dream that,
Like a mother, knows just what to do,
And like a child, disobeys utterly, sweetly.
I awake with chains.
The duty of interpreting your presence
Is fit for a martyr.
No, a prophet.
Have you not created a religion?
Have you not thirsted for a river
So wide of my blood?
I loved you like a tyrant to his throne.
I know why I can not love you now.

What wound cuts deeper than
A mother's betrayal?
I will give you a clue,
Amongst the perils
Of an antecedent life,

You were my son.

3 comments:

Jacques de Beaufort said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jacques de Beaufort said...

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.

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