belaboring hurt-bells
of twilight

outside there is a furious wind
sweeping the sour-faced pavement.
the helm of the morning
fits through the pinecones.
through the dandelion,
the diadem of some mystic flower,
the flurry of children
and the fury of the populace.

i know whence the wind stirs
cold flame from the many a dead
stones, sequined floor and the
dreary stillicide of night.
our bodies rise to the sun
that is a full woman
or a ripe apple
or a half-bitten moon in glare
and when her lips purse
there is pang in the wind that blows austere beneath the foot
of hills in ruin.

let the night come later than
a bird's secret sojourn,
or the cicada's enigma.
let the cathedral of my heart
quiver later than the unsheathing
of the night's bone
but in the twilight,
when the skies are bruised with
silence and somnolent without voice
my hands shall leap into the wind
and make do, the belaboring
hurt-bells of twilight.
no more than a crepuscular twining
of a sad vine on a melancholy hymn
that makes fuller with its tender
maneuvers, the trundling in
love's wearisome vessel.