We danced at the fire
Youth blazing bright
Paths unseen
As we mimicked the flame
We rode the gale
Ran ahead of the storm
Never fearing
The rain that might catch us
We drank the deeps
Probing the within
Always curious
For what was concealed
We grasped the candle
Illuminating each page
Devouring knowledge
Ignoring wisdom until dawn
We brandished the blades
Of well honed rhetoric
Clashing arms
Ruling our small, small world
We laughed at the fools
Ate of their feasts
Never realizing
They were ourselves
What glittering rays of light are these
Those visible calls of supplicant pleas
In moonlight-wept is cried the need
Who knows but where this path will lead?
For shuffling on the bended knees
The middling seeker begs for ease
A secret kept the stars may cede
Who knows but where this path will lead?
It was a late fall day
When you drew your last breath
The world held it with you
In massive silence it waited
As you looked into my eyes
One final time
There, you nodded
Confirming every memory
Your hand in mine, as before
A gentle squeeze with what strength remained
The past bridging the future in your gaze
Life to love to eternity
You held it, for as long as you could
Knowing there were none after
Seeking but one more moment here, with me
Your pain fled, your soul beckoned
To what lay beyond
And there, that final look
The peace cutting through pain
As we both knew, we both felt
The time, dragging away from us
Your gaze never leaving mine
A small shudder
Exhale
Your life spun out in crystalline motes
That danced in the morning sun
So much like your life
Once here, now gone in an instant
Settling upon my lips
Your final kiss
Your final gift to me
And it too, like your breath
Soon did fade
It was a late fall day
Within the bower of the night
I heard the dreaming call
Of that which, beyond my sight
From unseen lips did fall
I stood and looked and listened light
To hear again that note
So clear, so soft within the night
Within each darkened mote
And followed I into the moon
That wond’rous voice so fair
That for a time I might commune
Within her midnight lair
Driven was I to find the name
Of what could give such voice
A light to kindle heart to flame
To make the soul rejoice
Through the darkness of moonlight
I ran without a care
Until the sun did break the night
And I did find you there
A new wonder mine eye was shown
Such warmth and beauty and light
My soul now cleansed and not alone
Now banished was the night
And laid aside is memory
Under your heart sublime
This new love does call to me
And forgotten is all time
Though between all worlds may be
That the dark will always lie
So will love as mine for thee
And the sun shall always rise
A drawing near
Perchance to fade
When holy choir
Shall serenade
And falling free
The notes away
From list’ning ear
Into the rain
Now drawing near
Perchance to fade
‘Twas billig indeed among the toves
What gyred and gimbled in that wabe
But ne’er I saw the borogroves
And no mome-wrath did outgrabe
Yet I feared that jabberwock
With jaws and teeth and claws-that-catch
But none were the jub-jub birds to shun
And nowhere was the bandersnatch
Not vorpal sword, but pen in hand
Manxome legend foe I sought
Rested me, not by tum-tum tree
And wrote a while in thought
Though uffish I had stood
No jabberwock with eyes of flame
No whiffling, no tulgey wood
No burbling, nothing came
And one two! One two! Through and through!
My dream was cloven snicker-snack
I left it dead within my head
And went, remorseful back
Had I slain the jabberwock?
Was I no longer the beamish boy?
Oh ruinous way! Calamitous day!
With my youth has fled my joy
‘Twas brillig indeed among the toves
What gyred and gimbled in that wabe
But ne’er I saw the borogroves
And no mome-wrath did outgrabe
