Silver and Roses, Henna and Myrrh

 

 

 

 

 

 

To a Living Song

 

A long, stern day of many vagrant Moons

Has taxed the marrow of my hardened bones

And driven me across far-scattered dunes,

Exacting from my thwarted throat its groans.

And thou, my dulcet nightingale, hast come

With honey to the sweetness of the dusk,

On thy heart’s lyre a glorifying thrum,

On thy lips’ breath an amatory musk,

What hapless vagabond would not rejoice

His head to lay in Heaven’s florid fields

And hearken, gloating, thy rhapsodic voice

And the belov’d elixir that it yields?

Thou art the balm upon my parchéd brow.

Be thou the standard on my gladdened prow.

 

 

                               Sunday, January 12, 1969