Downdraft dreams in fields of fancy,
Gerunding with geomancy,
Paths so pure, so palpable —
Love that lies, and lays at lull.
Sweetly, on the swathes go swinging,
Wandering, and wanton winging,
Grass so green, and trees so tall —
Knowing not, and knowing
All
A time, a touch, a place,
The look upon your face,
A flood of feelings, everywhere,
And far more love than space.
A happening, an art,
Togetherness, apart:
A flood of what was once so rare,
An aching in my heart.
For life is only love.
It’s all that we dream of;
But life is rarely ever fair,
When push comes down to shove —
A time, a touch, a feel,
Not knowing if it’s real,
Or if we’re even truly there,
And yet, it’s our
Ideal
I spend my time in silent thought,
Just learning how to live,
And would not ask for anything
That you don’t want to give.
I watch the sunlight streaming through
My window as I write;
And see that though the string’s attached
I’m really just
A kite
… And when the west is red
With the sunset embers,
The lover lingers and sings
And the maid remembers.
– Robert Louis Stevenson, “Songs of Travel”
From dusty shelves, she ‘trieves an ancient book.
She reads a song in silence, taking in
The words and pictures with a loving look;
A world of music, long before the din
Of what must be, and what all might have been.
For what she’s lost — it never goes away,
As yielding night gives rise to feigning day.
The sorrows that we carry bury us,
Although we cover artfully each one;
But memories, like songs, are various
In all the ways they help us come undone,
So we can leave the dark, reclaim the sun,
The way she’s doing now, inside a brain
And heart that have known way too much of rain.
Recalling how he’d hope so long
Through every year’s December
He sees thst Christmas lives between
To hope and
To remember
beside the
sea-dark wine they laughed,
full and wise,
young and strong,
like grapes brought to them both by
blameless Aegisthus
She loved the flowers in the fields,
The new trout in the streams,
The clouds that blew in distant haze
That signaled other dreams.
Despite all this, her yearning grew,
And just would not abate:
For she loved more the things she lacked —
A very common
Fate
