(Return to Shelter Island)^^
~
"And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love"^
~
the winter's quietude
slowly dissipates,
like a miser's reluctantanc to-part-even-with
unwanted, yet saved up tears,
now finally shed,
tears easy ease on down to please,
morphing into spring rain
creating a horn of plenty of
les amuse-bouches,
summer tastes,
hints of mint,
all to commence, orchestrate,
miniature, slews of budding teases
of what may yet come
t'is only summer peekings coming to refresh,
memorized friends, recalling a former full bosomed lover's
abundant bounty,
untying the quiescent, frozen tongue,
relieving it of its stale,
suffocating, whited, slushed crust,
issued a full pardon and
twenty bucks pocket money and
freedom
to see the
new full born poems,
without the interference
of grey baited, metallic bars,
poems, floating by, on summer breezes,
air borne for lovers
the same water vista,
under grayscale sky and
winter cloud cover,
is uncrackable and the
Hollow King of Words,
silently languishes, jailed alone,
wretched and deposed,
a wrecked winter's tale told,
an empty throne forlorn
no-way-out aperture extant,
no keyhole found to unlock,
all the songs
that to no avail,
the ineffectual poets impatiently
have prayed,
beseeching an unresponsive sky to rain forth
uniforms of pastel blues and whites
only summer sun-rays
seasonly ready now, fully ripened,
rays notably higher angled,
that can ***** and crack open
the skull and bones,
rejoice the soul's soil,
filling eyes with leafy canopy of green down,
while reheating the heart's chambers,
un-encoding the precise temperature formulae,
for the degree exacting,
where the words-wanting-for-extracting,
release and rouse themselves from a
deeper dreamless hibernating,
and even a last remaining,
napping, spring drowsiness
awaken to a symphony spoken
pitch perfect,
a woven rainbow color palate ensemble,
all full throated blooming
before and by my water view,
an old empty Adirondack throne has grown
one more winter-withered and wise and weary,
aging well,
if aging a well be,
and yet visibly poorly,
unable to speak,
bereft these so many months
of its human companion's conjoint, howling voice
chair asks him now plaintive,
not
where I've been,
knowing that any answer
immaterial
nor
does it inquire,
have I come to stay,
knowing any human answer
is always at best
an uncertain truth
only this it seeks ascertaining,
desiring a newly needed-seeded knowing
do I return
carrying with me,
a summer's secret love?
strong enough to make our single tongue
break the wet dog woeful silences,
to sing the praise of
those refreshed elements now blossoming surrounding,
that all come to enhance,
the secret purpose of the human
do I carry the tune
that will unlock,
at long last,
the somber silence,
that no winter's gale roar or
noisy, erratic spring chirping ,
however loud,
yet leaves nature, alone, clouded,
incapable of solving
the riddle of human nature,
that bring summers birthing to fruition
do I in my possess,
own the love,
that's strong enough to end
the silenced weeping
of the other season's mourning abscesses,
the absence of summer?
they say it is but the mechanical turning of
the hardware store's calendar, kitchen-walled hung,
that marks the man's semi-automatic returning,
yet the paper's crossed out, numerical dates,
cannot foretell,
if the necessary passion,
the requisite human love,
the provident kindling of summer's furnace
whose heat,
can provide life's
reasonings,
will arrive on timely so that
even silence will now have found the tongue
to haunt me all the summer long;
the riddle nature could not prove,
was nothing else, but secret love
5/23~28/16
^^written in anticipation
and completed
upon the return to
Shelter Island
^John Clare, English Poet
1793 - 1864