Dwellers in a chalk and limestone country,
We never knew the well-watered valleys of Eden,
Whose Four Streams never ran dry,
The freshets and the fountains of that garden.

For long, it is said, we wandered in the desert
Where all the streams ran darkening into sand.
For survival, we ****** the damp grit
And in the dry storms held each other’s hand.

Faithful we may have been, yet had no faith
To smite the living granite with a staff.
We were not the kind for miracles.
It was enough sometimes to hear you laugh.

And now we have come to our own territory,
No Eden, but the pastureland is good.
The waters flow here unpredictably,
But here at least is neither sand nor flood.

And we, the fallen lovers, knowing thirst,
Learned long ago to play the waiting part,
And have most joy in knowing after cloudburst
The winterbournes and swallets of the heart.

I cried as the stars bore low, a listening ceiling of silver rips and pins. There was no moon and they pressed lower and lower still.

And all that could be heard was the ebb and flow of one creaking
breath, one and then another,
going, going;
I was surprised that they were mine.

I pushed myself forth and away from the horror of your love in that coffin of a room.
An epithelalium, a dirge and a hymnal came to me at dawn. It was a birth into a clean white winter.

There is a bright place on the frosted pane where my salt water has melted through;
Though I falter in my steps I know my legs will carry me far away.

Her love spills out like scarlet seeds,
and red wine rolled on jealous tongues,
and gold leaves nestled in her hair.
It feathers during secret deeds

whilst breath is passed between two lungs.
Rubies cluster at her throat
like blood clots that her flesh forgot.
She draws him to her, limb in limb,
a desperate love dressed up in quilts.

The seeds that bloomed may sometime rot,
and candles die, and lust grow dim,
but I dreamt that he'll still gasp her name,
and she wish to be close to him.