Day hides the stars that might shine tonight
As my life when the loneliness comes
Among the hills:
I have touched the joy that goes
Seeping down into darkness
Rooting my soul that thus a storm
Cannot wash it away.
Here - a smile to capture worlds
With hidden words
When I believe a night has no terrors
Like my own
And I sleep at peace
Beneath the dome of stars.
I - passing the world
That way each day passes to a week -
Shook dust from my clothes
And walked barefoot toward a village green.
It was no use -
I had only to forget to remember
The silence where I in gladness sang
Stopping those spirits who had waited by their trees
For one like me to visit them,
Again.
So I sit on the damp grass
Waiting
For a world of love.
Then, smiling, I shake away the dew
To walk barefoot across a village green.
Wild blows the wind
While a young man - moon-seeing, sleepless
And divorced -
Walks the valley where
Frost
Glints beside a stream.
No sound
Except the water
And his feet breaking ice.
Above - a hill where sheep
Slumber.
Soon
A Solstice sun may warm
A little
And he in his now sweaty clothes
Will sit huddled
In his empty room
And dream, desperately,
Of love.
Another night nearly over
And she stumbles wearily
To dress her beauty
While a moon leaks light
To her room:
"In the moonlight
I am quite pretty."
She smiles, briefly,
And turns some music on.
Nearby, a river
Fed by some distant valley stream.
But, quite quickly,
Her quiet, slow, confidence
Is gone.
Her town caught him
Briefly, next day.
She was there, waiting to cross
The fume-filled street
And he stared as she walked by
Caught and awed by her beauty.
But she hurried past embarrassed
By his stare.
Words and he were not friends,
And he let their future
Pass:
Nearby, sun glinted, briefly,
Upon ice.
A sudden silence -
No longer can I hear the many sounds
Of Nature.
A falling darkness -
No longer can I see the distant hills.
Instead:
Whispering shadows hang upon the Eart
Tendons of a goddess mauling the insignificance
That is me.
Sudden rain -
Tempestuous in sylphic fury;
A blinding flash
Startling in its nearness
As I walk a country path.
Then - shattering shouts as the wroth of the gods
Rolls around me.
Suddenly
No longer am I calm
No longer am I still -
Instead:
Throwing wide arms of madness thrashing
Dancing dance of Daedalian dreams
In tears of goddess weeping sadness
I come to joy and youthful schemes
Feeling a freedom brought, at last!
Foolish self -
Left standing in light left by passing storm,
Hoping no one human has seen.
Then, mindful of the past, and smiling,
I return to tramp the country lane.