In repose by firelight
juniper needles crushed, scented
under sublime weight
of autumn. Tresses
softening across her shoulders.
Now spring,
these extinguished coals
barely smolder.
One tent peg remains, a soldier
plunged in thawing ground
Last carnival truck tail lights leaving town
disappear behind a column of sadness.
Vanishing with a distant sigh,
writing opposite to her winter equinox,
it will summer by the time this message arrives.
Love is a black glove
forging gilded arrows
launched in the bent bow of a sentence,
Its taught strings drawn with tension,
couplets released, crossing the sky
To each shaft,
a note is tied
stained with tears a heart has cried.
Silence is a remedy for the wounds of love,
As a lover’s arrow comes and goes
This mad astronomy
of two stars gazing,
Through constellations in repose
Your summer flower has leaned into my winter frost.
Everything is changing, yet
Seasons have no meaning
on the equator,
There is a stark still repose in the garden
Dusk and dawn dip and rise
about the circadian fulcrum
The moon in zenith pulls the tides
The heart is a ship at rest in a sea of motion.
Teetering along the seam of time.
(the final version of this poem appears in publication https://www.centerforinterfaithrelations.org/poetry/winners/season-on-the-equator/)
Epilogue (the following were stay notes in building this poem):
A tale of two childhoods,
eons and worlds apart. We sit,
Alone with the same campfire in our eyes,
two beings in repose
at twilight
The holly berries redden,
In a warm rain,
even a wish knows,
everything is change.
We ships cross divides
of time and space
Say little more than a gentle word
Caught in the catch of a sail.
We pass, our trailing wakes combine,
Then fade away.
We cannot speak,
as we choke on withheld words
Each heart a rose wrapped
in thorns
Each sigh casts a scent
that leaves us torn.
#25wtT
