She is away.  Too long.  Too long.  My heart, it weeps sorrows
so soft.  So soft.  Like wind in the desert, drying the sweat
that beads like glass, bright spheres that shine within from luminous
distant sources, bent and merg'd to take the dark to task
and ask the dawn for a rebirth of hope, like a child's prayer.

So long had I been sad, a lost goblet at the banquet,
breathing the airs, senses now dry, brittle, a lost flavour
hidden in the decanted kiss now memory to hold,
tightly.  Tightly.  Fearful it might take wind and slip away,
like so many other soft religions.  Trusting her heart.

I will sit here, for the moment, and just inhale essence
that still lingers in the comfort and cruel karma of life.
I will toast her promise, and her most eloquent kisses.
I will make plans, and prayers, and dreams that seem now possible,
in her gentle passion, her cool integrity, her smile.

That part of me, betrayed and too often battered by those
who seek revenge in sad charades of love, still can believe.
Believe in things said with a soft syntax of a held hand,
a kiss like a hesitant child, newly learning the depth
of the ocean of hearts, navigating towards victory.

She is away.  Too long.  Too long.  And the wallclock cannot
comfort me long, for I perish slowly, my heart stolen
but kept safely warm in her hands, a shared trusting of eyes
kept full open to kiss, to draw all that there is to taste,
and I am no longer given to the morsels and mould.


copyright William F. DeVault (wfdv)