September Meeting

 

It was you,

stranger in a strange land;

possessed with eyes blue as hyacinths,

innocent as birth,

blameless as death's cold love

for all our brief imaginings.

You, who called from hibernation

all those great and sad perspectives

sharp with joy and desolation.

You, who faced me with such instant love,

that I, caught in the slowness

of low expectation,

almost failed to perceive

how in your voice "forever" breathed.

And through your life lost kingdoms moved,

and were restored to me.

 

That you should be the catalyst for this,

The last great journey of the mind,

where separation from the sound

of solar wind was healed.

Where I became the stuff of stars,

and knew myself to be at home

in strange unconscious streets, whose

temporal testament to many gods

flowed stoney through my blood.

That you, though unaware, should

see the super nova of my heart's

last true and guileless grief,

to leave a pulsar at my soul

so black, that life itself

is captive at my core.

 

That I should be made whole

for just one moment by your touch,

and meet again the Angel of the Elegies,

who at Duino had vouchsafed

a vision to a fellow mind

which would have understood

how through your eyes

infinity surprised my soul,

and startled me from sleep.

 

©James Rainsford

All content and material © James Rainsford 2011