I. Reasons For My Leaving


I should have gone long before
Before they called
Before that soft misty morning
Before the evening hearth turned cold and gray

And now the path grows darker
Swallowed by the unforgiving night

I was afraid
And I hid
Deep in the couch of my glowing study
My form crumpled and numb
Wood kindling sculpted by the fire into writhing snakes
Beating against my eyes
Giving life to the golden gilded letters and crests of the worn volumes adorning the
shelves
That golden silk dress…the blue evening where the sky bled into the grass …you joined
me on the mystic lawn, moving soundlessly from the veranda, a soft flower
breaking open by night…shivering and uncertain…as your tears
As though emerging from a chrysalis, while unveiling flowing beauty with each struggle
into the world, your delicate wings flickering in the night…your hair fragrant with
summer pollens…the stars glowing into our glasses of wine that remained
warm…untouched by their cold breath…their unheard laughter
     
Evening shades with secret visages and silent manacles shook vainly at the panes

Where shall I see you again?
Will we meet at that distant shore
Where the eyes of the dead became twenty thousand grains of sand
To be tormented by the slow waters
And the empty sky howls against the mind’s ear

Will you appear among the myrtles that nourish the old crumbling garden of marble
Their flowers ornamenting your hair
Sweetening your pale skin of summer dew with their breath?
Will your eyes flow wild with the colors of lightning?
And the warmth of your lips run forever with what the electric talons can bring in only flashes?

Will I feel the warm beat of your heart when I take your hand, a folded white dove?
Or will there be only your voice, borne on the glistening cold creek water?
Echoing between the twelve moss-scarred oaks
Only one set of footsteps against the forest carpet of pine needles
A web of shadows turning the forest cold
Shades of the evening growing stronger,
Wind echoing their laughter as I look for you
Kicking the leaves
The weeds brush against my moth eaten coat
My hands again small
Weaving twine and sod together…warm whispers
Your face crumpling with tears…clouds closing over us
And wind

The shrieks of night birds
I cling my coat close and let my breath cling to the air
Forced and slow as my face grows numb
I follow the pale birches into the forest

Through the stiffened night air
The wanton fairies beat their wings
Carrying lanterns filled with the blood of stars
Kicking seeds to the tortured earth, laughing
Clinging to my coat
This burnt and lesioned skin worn hard by years
Cigarettes mud and coffee stains
As I brush by

The grasses have grown hard as pines
As I lay by the grieving creek
A roar reduced to your soft voice reserved to late nights and early mornings…to tears against a pillow:

                I quiver, shrinking, naked in the moss and strange dust
Suffering the violent strokes of wind and salt
I who once built glistening kingdoms and chalices
My mystic visage flashing throughout its castles and halls
And made the cold wraiths my thanes
From finest diamonds and satin
Crushed by unseen fires

I console him with shreds of old fabric that smell of the farmhouse

No, I need not your charity
I have warmth:
The laughter of a thousand demons
Sculpted of stars and bones

His wilting form shakes and hardens through the night
Flashing glass dragon scales against the eyes of Dawn
I awaken slow, my lungs heavy with night air