And Her - of a Friend's Muse
Out of the depths of my soul comes my Lady
Across heart and mind to spread a light
Radiant as the slender moon as she
Floats the still black waters of the night
The universe comes into being
In the shadow of her presence
And seized by the vision I am seeing
I'm drawn by a longing so intense
Entranced I would fly to pull her to me
And could I hold or would I
Overwhelmed by her mystery
Tumble back down the dark sky
With all of heaven too far above me
Condemned to the earth beneath
Imprisoned in this small life I create
Bewildered by this bitterness and grief
And left in the deepening silence to wait
My soul locked and chained within
Without her my spirit unable to rise
Denied the grace of inspiration again
To see the world with merely human eyes
So far from the one that produced
Wholeness of vision beautiful divine
The heart of the unseen reduced
To words once made to live and shine
By love of light from which they sprang
Fashioned first by woman and as fine
As any woman's child who lived and sang
The songs his mother taught in lullabye
While still enfolded in the arms of her who brings
This joy from which I stand apart estranged and shy
To suffer love perhaps to learn to love all things
And recognize in the lowest and most mundane
Forms hidden behind her often closing door
Are echoed and mirrored in the most arcane
Authority that I have honored so much more
And charged with the burden of my own success
Required to learn what silence has written
Is more than any tongue can express
Or struggle to contain and fit in
The emptiness of words if stirred to verse
When all is her and her eclipsed I find
The eloquence of love can be a curse
So much greater than this little mind.
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