Cupid and Psyche

Quod ergo Deus conjúnxit, homo non séparet.


Cupid and Psyche

Your smile is a song these wayward lips
will sing, my Psyche, sweet as summer rain,
a physic fit to cure my every pain
and radiance that, ringing this eclipse,

reminds me of the night you held a glim
and gazed on Cupid's countenance, asleep,
a trespass, yet a covenant to keep,
for, in the incandescence of the dim

and frail flame, you found another I,
as similar as if the two were one,
and pledged yourself, before you were begun,
to bear eternity; and I reply

that if another's lover be as true,
she would be yet a feeble shade of you.

Imminent

Of course, it's raining today, but I could have sworn I saw the sun on Friday. Crocuses are blooming, trees are budding, and May is coming faster than I could have imagined.


Imminent

Old, grey-eyed winter gives a final gasp
and clutches at the bony-fingered trees,
bewildered and bedeviled by the grasp
of blossoms bearing upwards to the bees;

high overhead, the clouds dispense a spell,
a curtain call of keen and seething snow,
but feebly, for they notice, all too well,
the shoots and runners readying to grow.

And how the weathermen will groan and gripe
and warn us of the ever-coming chill,
as arctic winds diminish, over-ripe
and withered. Let the weather as it will,

but, as for me, a warble on the wing
assures me of the certainty of spring.

Treasures

How many rich men count themselves happy? It is not money, but people, that we ought to consider wealth. When every last penny has been spent, the worth of those who love us will not have been depleted by one whit.


Treasures

I am not rich, but neither am I poor;
my coffers ebb and flow abreast the tide,
to satisfy me from an ample store.
It is a simple duty to provide

for everyday demands. A modest heart,
obliging both in appetite and mode,
impels a similarly modest art
to satisfy its unabating load,

and gladly, for a dollar never bought
a single speck of happiness. I must
rely upon another, as I ought,
and rest my merriment upon the trust

that you will love me even when my stock
of worldly relief has run its clock.

Dreams

I can never predict what sort of dreams I will have. Sometimes, they are pleasant. Other times, they are frightening. But, mostly, they are just strange. They play out like vignettes from an indie film, and I am all too happy to wake up in the morning.


Dreams

Some dreams are spun in filaments of gold
and silk, and hold against the sudden break
of morning light that startles us awake;
they swathe us in the unassuming fold

of easy sleep. But other are the dreams
devised of darker element and thread;
they keep a correspondence with the dead
and hold us in the horror of their seams.

And as we slip and sally into shade,
the visitants that quicken in the brain
and enter the imagination's vein
may leave us overjoyed or afraid

upon the cryptic rhythm of their tide;
no slumber's certain till it can subside.

A Little More

Time passes swiftly and the months fall away; every day draws us another day nearer. How could so many miss this happiness I have found? We are a fallen people, and our heaven is both painfully immediate and unattainably distant.


A Little More

A little more this hand must wait to bear
the weight that others shoulder with a sigh,
but silver bands are lighter than the air
and vows, a better salve. So long as I

long only for my perfect counterpart,
I will not play a wastrel, spurning love.
With every beat, you calibrate your heart
to fit me like an old, accustomed glove.

And know that I would empty every breath
to fashion mine a mirror of your own,
reflecting, now and ever after death,
a beauty that was for my eyes, alone.

And so, I wait a little more to see
this promise of a fair eternity.

The Festival of the Last Minute

Another year come and gone; another fifty-two poems on the (metaphorical) page. This next shall bring big changes for me - momentous, earth-shaking changes - but this poetry blog, read or unread, will steadily chug along. I can only hope that it brings you as much joy as it does me. God bless and merry Christmas.


The Festival of the Last Minute

With Christmas close upon us and the rush
of shopping, should it come as a surprise
that charity is buried in a crush
of acquisition. How we idolize

and gather, like a flock of silly sheep,
and straightaway surrender every scrap
of will and wit and intellect we keep
to toe the latest trend. This honeyed trap

entices both the plebeian and prince.
What better way to show your tender care
than with a gift? How better to convince
of love than by the offerings you bear?

But as for me, I'll spend the eve in rest
and seek to be an honest Christmas guest.

Soon

Can it be that time is passing so quickly? Sometimes, the seconds are an eternity, but other times, weeks hardly seem a sufficient measure. I can't say I mind the latter state, so long as things slow down come May.


Soon

When winter eases and the willing earth
awakens to the legacy of snow,
when shoots are swelling for a sudden birth
and all the land is fit to overflow

with liveliness, as just as sure as we
are set to sow our happiness, a song
is on our tongues, a wild reverie.
Though we are here, we shall not linger long,

when longing couples liberty to pain
and makes the hours agony to bear.
Our servitude is certain to be gain,
our mingling, a joyful affair.

For on the day we join soul to soul,
we make our native deficit a whole.

Sleep

How pleasant it is to burrow under the heavy weight of blankets, when the temperature and sun are sinking fast. The only grief of sleep is how quickly it passes, and the time for rising in the chill morning air is upon us as, day and night, we play the sorry Persephone.


Sleep

The night approaches, dim and deep and dark,
an inky chill that clambers at my toes.
That old December sky is bare and stark
and stippled with the stars. I do suppose

I'll wander off to bed, and to my dreams;
they warm me, and the burly blankets, too,
as other warmth unravels at the seams
and slips away. How pleasant to pursue

my bounding, old bellwether and his flock,
who number out the enterprise of sleep
as surely as a counterweighted clock.
Within my waking mind, the moments creep,

but, sure and sweet, a somnolence takes hold
and, sooner than I know, the night is old.

Itinerancy

The time for uprooting old foundations is fast approaching. Of the things that must go, I will miss the juniper and wisteria most of all. They've done well for themselves, and it's a terrible pity to see their slow and steady progress so swiftly concluded. What must be, must be, I suppose, but I dream of the day I can establish a plant and watch it grow for decades to come.


Itinerancy

Our barrel tree has barely made a man
in height; his roots have labored for the earth
forlornly, hindered by an iron girth
and sentenced, just as soon as they began

descending, to terminated lot.
We'll turn him out, all sod and sorry dirt
and limbs askew. The effort we exert
to extricate his skeleton is not

inordinate for what it took to bed
his youthfulness so many years ago;
so many years of sun and bitter snow,
and, through it all, he kept a noble head.

But now, we move our transitory home;
no rooted tree was ever meant to roam.

Human Faith

Human beings are inconstant, mercurial creatures. This is the crux of almost every broken relationship and failed love. How can we trust, when the ones to be trusted are inevitably untrustworthy? To be called to love, however, is to be called to trust the untrustworthy. It is a terrible gamble, but the surety of it is this: though the risk of failure is great, the reward of success is infinitely greater and, while we may escape the possibility of misery, it can only be at the cost of every hope of appreciable happiness. So, a million might fail and one succeed, but this is the burden of human life, and a world in which even one can strive for happiness is far better than a world in which all are condemned to indifference. We love, and so we put our faith in others, and this is the blessing and curse of our existence. Only remember, the suffering of a broken faith is transient, but the happiness of a proven faith eternal. Search always for a worthy human faith, no matter how often your confidences are abused. Accede to no less and, while you may endure much suffering, you will find, in the end, extraordinary happiness.


Human Faith

My faith I put in winter and the frost,
in summer and the rampant meadow-grass,
in things begotten, even as they pass,
and so my merriment imparts a cost

of mortal and perennial decline;
this is a mild charge I gladly meet,
for treasure freely tendered is deceit,
but death and reawakening, divine.

My faith in sempiternal loss and gain
is sound; these underpinnings shall abide
through age and age, long after we have died,
and, with another certainty, remain,

for, of the fleeting fancies I pursue,
I put my final human faith in you.

On a Bearing

There is a great gulf between that which we think will make us happy and that which truly will. We are impelled toward both possible objects by our desire for happiness. Unfortunately, our desire only indicates, like a compass, what direction to travel, and not where to stop. So, stopping all too soon, we believe we have found true happiness when, in fact, we have merely found a pale imitation along the way. Therefore, do not let yourself be distracted by any earthly possession that alleges to provide happiness. The only object which can realize this claim is God, and the only earthly objects that can share in that realization are the ones that bear a likeness. That is, you can look for a measure of happiness in this life as long as you look for it in those you love.


On a Bearing

Desire is a compass spinning free
of all impedimenta, pointed true
and rooted to the stratum of the sea.
A fitter apparatus never drew

so fine a tack, and yet our hasty hearts
are sorely lacking prudence, for they seek
direction reft of purpose. Pale arts,
intemperate in season and oblique

in counsel, lead us ever on a vain
trajectory, untutored in design.
The necessary consequence is pain;
the predetermined eminence, decline;

for satisfaction never held a sway
upon our native bearings, run astray.

The Enduring Bridge

I wrote this many months back - at least four, although I can't say for certain. It's a billet-doux to telephones and emails and handwritten letters and all those other sundry things that make distance in equal parts manageable and maddening.


The Enduring Bridge

So curious, that we must live apart
and only find liaison in a word
or two that tells the tenor of the heart,
but leaves the fundamental song unheard.

This firm division - necessary rift
of strict materiality - must hold
our minds in segregation, till the swift
and independent melodies unfold,

and unity discretely yields one,
as in an old duet we persevere.
Although they argue two apart is none,
a subtle harmony is all we hear,

for, long as living voices span the breach,
I have no fear our words will cease to reach.

I Know

Nowadays, conjugal love is equated with sex. The undeniable bond between the body and the soul, a bond which once subjugated the lesser to greater, has faded, firstly, into the correspondence of equals, and then into a revolt of our animal half, which has left the soul derided, and even ignored, as the useless trappings of an unfortunate puritanical history. And so, love is now affixed to feeling, urge, hunger, lust, et cetera, but never, ever can it be called knowledge. This was the way in which the Old Testament spoke of conjugal love, and the truth of this is paramount. If love is simply a feeling, then it is as weak as the hormones and chemical reactions that produce that feeling, for feelings are, in the end, rooted in the body, however amorphous and incorporeal they may seem. Love that knows the beloved, however, is immeasurably stronger and immeasurably more meaningful. And where is this knowledge? Why, in the intellect, of course. Any meaningful love - any real love - cannot reside in the emotions, but in the reason. The difference is this: when love is based in a bodily feeling, you love the object of that feeling, which is physical and psychological pleasure. On the other hand, when love is based in knowledge, you love the object of that knowledge, which is the beloved. Then unless you can first love with reason, you will never truly love with feeling.


I Know

If loving were a longing, barely held
within the flighty confines of the heart,
that joy would as quickly be expelled
as nurtured by our fluctuating art,

for sentiments are fickle as the wind
that daily alters over land and sea,
and such a love would surely be unpinned
by every altercation of degree.

But love that undergirds the heavy weight
of centuries in melody and verse
is ever more than orotund estate,
unfitly nurtured by a feeble nurse.

The truest love to occupy the soul
is knowledge of the deficit and whole.

Coffins

So much of what we undertake in this life is done to satisfy expectations. Is it not best to do what we know to be right, regardless of the approval of others? Whether this be schooling, work, or, in this case, burial, the argument is always the same. Do not waste effort pandering to the expectations of society. The truth will be found in following your reason, your heart, and your conscience. In this particular case, I see no reason why my survivors should spend thousands of dollars to bury me in a box for which neither they nor I will find any use, and which will serve only as the bed of my decomposition. Far better to return as I came, wrapped in cloth and unmindful of the womb in which I will lay.


Coffins

No man was born to occupy a box;
his billet is the bounded mortal sphere,
and when his life has superseded clocks
and compasses, no home will find him here,

alone and lifeless in a velvet bed,
his carnal heart concluded, as a new
and fitter heart is founded overhead.
To sorrow for the former is askew

of immortality. So lay me low
in linens, leaving better homes for those
whose hearts are still enlivened. Let me go
as I arrived, and all bereft of clothes

and dwelling, for I need no earthly nest
when I no longer play the earthly guest.

Similarity

Some say that opposites attract. I say that unless there is a fundamental likeness there can be no attraction at all. Of course that which is different from yourself is interesting and intriguing, but such difference must rest on a foundation of similarity. To act otherwise would be akin to drowning yourself for the excitement of living underwater. You first must find your basis within the realms of the necessarily familiar before you seek the balance of the disparate. So, we search for the unknown above water, where we can live and breathe, and we look for happy relationships with those who bear a true likeness to ourselves in the essential ways, and only differ extraneously, for, in the end, little differences are fun; big differences are destructive.


Similarity

No happiness, unburdened and divine,
was ever found in difference. The seed
of love allows a modicum of wine
to supplement the promise of the reed

in genesis if only like assents
to like, for when did likening betray
the counterpart of comforting intents?
The sun could sooner disavow the day,

and so, the errant soul will never rest
until it finds a doppelgänging peer,
and quietude will never be possessed
until a much of muchness persevere

and opposition fail to enthrall,
the constancy of semblance over all.

Succession

For a long time, the focus of my life had been my evenings. Now all that has changed, and whereas I once measured days by quiet hours under the stars, I now find myself most alive in the sun and rain. This has little to do with the circumstances of day and night, and a great deal to do with the people that populate those circumstances.


Succession

The night was once a friend, but now the day
is better, for he holds my only heart
in consequence and ornaments the way
I ought to walk. A fitter compass chart

I could not hope to follow, for the stars,
though radiant in shadow, show a flaw
when likened to a sunny light, as ours.
Upon the glowing vision, they withdraw

and linger till the evening. The night
is only now a guidance in the gloom,
but this is not my portion, this, my light,
illuminates the corners of my room

and pledges joy ever it began.
Then I await, as only wonder can.

Now and Then

In youth (not to say that I'm out of it yet, though it's getting harder and harder to maintain the facade), it often happens that the things we believe to be true are based on a little experience and a lot of conceit. If we don't know everything by high-school, then we certainly do by college, and parents are fools and authority exists to be questioned. Then, we grow up, and idealism and hope are replaced by cynicism and doubt, and all those starry-eyed liberals suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves walking around in the polished, wing-tip shoes of world-weary conservatives. It does not have to be so. Make no mistake, it is the epitome of naiveté to cling to the high-minded convictions of youth. All too often, they are founded on nothing more than over-excited intellects and narrow-minded views of reality. But, to slip into the disenchantment of adulthood is an equally grave sin. There is, thankfully, a middle ground, where the ideals that once nourished us can be married to the difficult reality that surrounds us. This happy mean can seem, at times, to be unattainable, and, indeed, many never find it. Our mistake, however, is to search for it by ourselves. Alone, we can never hope to reach it; it is only found through others. And what can those others do for us? They can love and they can be loved. This is where the idealism of youth and the realism of adulthood meet. Love without suffering is weak, and suffering without love is unconquerable, but, together, they can forge a happiness which is indescribably better than anything our flawed human intellects could imagine. At this point, I'm sure, you're beginning to question whether I am as distanced from my youth as I believe. All I can say to you is that these things are true, and that if you are unwilling to trust me in this, you will squander your happiness, even if it should be dropped on your doorstep, for when it does come, you will not recognize it for what it is. Love sustains us and love enlivens us, and there is no truer credo than this: the only real happiness we can hope for in this life is found in love.


Now and Then

I once imagined I could see beyond
the surfaces that held the world fast,
a water-weight of knowledge for my bond
and fetter, fitted tightly to the last,

but in my nonage, any scanty sense
was made a fool's wisdom. What is youth,
but seizing on indifferent defense?
To fancy that I contemplated truth

was such a sophomoric disregard,
that, even now, I smile at the thought
of certitude I judged exceeding hard,
but found to be far gentler than not,

and, even now, the axioms I hold
will fall before the truth when I am old.

I Wake the Morning

The still and calm of morning is an experience not to be foregone. An early morning makes the days longer, the sunlight brighter, and the nights deeper. It is easy to make a habit of sleeping in, but, thank goodness, my job has me up by 6:30 every day of the week, and I never cease to be grateful for that. The only imperfection I can find in mornings are their brief durations.


I Wake the Morning

I wake the morning to a tribe of birds
who make a merry twittering; a brief
apocalypse of animated words
is overheard from sediment to leaf.

Then, subtly, the sky is on the surge,
the steady march of hours is begun,
and retrograding shadows near the verge
of life and deed and escalating sun.

And where are all my birds, my early friends,
who reveled in the swiftly fading dark?
As others made their leisurely amends,
we restive ones brought closure to the arc.

But now we rise in transitory flight;
your hectic sphere is calmer from a height.

Our Accord

Life is full of suffering, and so much of it is beyond our control. Even as it attends us, we seek to mitigate it. And so we struggle alone against our fate, and there is no greater loneliness, no greater wretchedness, than to bear these struggles alone. Yet, while no simple man could ever relieve our suffering, others can share it, and so make bearable what was, before, impossible. It is only through others that we find such comfort. We must not live this life alone.


Our Accord

What worries have you? What exhausting weight
is hoisted high upon your bowing back,
which burden I cannot alleviate?
You shall secure the complement you lack

in time and season, though it tarries long,
forestalling what was preordained to be,
ere was the earth. This augury is strong
and sure enough to offer liberty.

Then take a wing upon a higher wind
and leave your mortal trials far below.
Among the living, all, alike, have sinned,
but we, at least, have found accord. And know

that, though I cannot shelter you from grief,
our happiness shall furnish sweet relief.

A Dream

Would you like to see my dreams? I doubt it...


A Dream

Of where we are and where we ought to be,
too much is left unspoken. Here, a span
of glassy rime and misty mantled sea
extends before me, ever further than

my eyes can tell. I enter, not to sink,
but, stranger yet, to float upon the brume.
Down from the briny bed, my fingers drink
so delicately of the tidal flume

that ferries me along this open spread.
I sift the gauzy strands of fog and stir
the crepitated floe, and far ahead
the facing shore recesses to a blur.

I cannot compass what these tokens mean,
for truth is never fathomed in between.