The First and Last (Farlien’s Meeting Place)

I could have gone on the ether

I could have kissed the hems

Of the cloud-clad gifts of Demeter

Of the jewels in the rocks and the fens

–

I had no seated bounds

No traces wound ‘round 

Naked lips, wrists, fingers and ankles

My neck I wore white

And clean as the new light

That broke on the spears of the mountains

–

I knew the birds’ hum

And the sybilline thrum

Of the woods and the heather mist rising

I looked no farther away

Than the next dawning day

‘Til I found the first and last treasure

–

I could have gone on the ether

I could have raised the land

With every step after Demeter

With every note sung a command

–

But I found the green by the water

I found flowers born of the eye

I found the words never before uttered

And here I am happy to lie

*

This poem started with a mondegreene from “Moonlit”, by Villages

Image from Tolkien Gateway

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While you are here

While you are dreaming

Of that Cimmerian shade

Drifting ahead, a few years from now

I can do nothing

But hope you won’t stray

And wait to miss you

Should you go

After tea

What a bitter day is ending

And hardly to be borne

The hours paved with nettles

Though I knew not what for

 

For you no longer want me, friend

This I now plainly see

Departing in your glass caravan

That you once had of me

 

How hard and strange it would seem

Had we that golden bowl of trust

Piled with fruits of the first water

Budded and grown between us

 

But I confess that this we never had

And with sunset, I begin to see

That I had tired of your intemperance

Before you tired of me

Paper lands

In falling out of seasons and stars

The embers’ creep unfurrrowing charts

From fingers’ width to leagues unbound

Stone, wood and sea in all their parts

Vistas each moment by ash remarked

Wings arising to crumble

Thence gone afar

The things we half forget

For all the days we left behind, which somehow turned to years

Before we knew autumn’s second meaning

Or saw pages thin to sheer

We will have other summers, yet more like other lives

Child-selves running through pictures

Of lost-remembered ties

~

Image source

Morning Synesthesia

I woke up prematurely

In the most agreeable way

Three sweetly-laden platters

A black forest, a mousse, a cheesecake

And as I dressed for work

I still wanted to believe

Sadly, my empty stomach

Proved the cakes were just a dream

 

 

 

Sleepless

Dark the curtains when dark the night

‘Gainst shards of fire from moonside skies

Fear turning upon the flick of a light

The whisper of water

A child’s cries