O the cryptic photograph
of a woman’s eyes,
as vast as the heavens,
as small as a pond.
I have both drowned and flown
in your embrace.
As needlessly indifferent
though you be, I trust in the exceeding vows
of time, like a penitent gardener,
that the tentative flowers of our anguish
shall blossom into fruits of the abyss,
glinting gemstones and peeling songs
recovered from the castles
of the imaginary, placed upon shelves,
and eternally recalled,
summoning smiles from the heart,
and the ghostly scent of you,
souvenir of the try,
prize of my life, again,
of tales and time.
11/09/2016
Richmond
after “Awake” by Jeremy Soule