Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.

Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown.

We drown in shadows starker still,
shadows of the somber hills,
shadows of sad selves we spill,

tumbling, to the ground below.
There, caked in grimy, clinging snow,
we flutter feebly, moaning low

for days dreamed once an age ago
when we weren't shadows, but were men . . .
when we were men, or almost so.

Published by Homespun and Mind in Motion. This poem was written either in high school or my first two years of college because it appeared in the 1979 issue of my college literary journal, Homespun. Keywords/Tags: shadows, dark, walls, evening, starlight, moonlight, men, souls, drowning, phantoms, shades

Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to an indiscreet height

and you laughed,
abruptly demure,
outblushing shocked violets:

suddenly,
I knew:
everything had changed.

Later, as you braided your hair
into long bluish plaits
the shadows empurpled,

the dragonflies’
last darting feints
dissolving mid-air,

we watched the sun’s long glide
into evening,
knowing and unknowing.

O, how the illusions of love
await us in the commonplace
and rare

then haunt our small remainder of hours.

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Muse Apprentice Guild, Victorian Violet Press, Boston Poetry Magazine, and Poetry on Demand

Keywords/Tags: Violets, flowers, wind, skirt, blush, hair, shadows, sunset, evening, love, illusions, time, commonplace, rare

Cause I want to reach you
before the moon comes
to tell that I miss you
and see your smile

Evening Song
Willa Cather - 1873-1947



Dear love,                                              
what thing of all the things that be 
Is ever worth one thought from you or me, 
             Save only Love, 
             Save only Love?
The days so short, the nights so quick to flee, 
The world so wide, so deep and dark the sea, 
              So dark the sea; 
So far the suns and every listless star, 
Beyond their light—Ah! dear, who knows how far, 
             Who knows how far? 
One thing of all dim things I know is true, 
The heart within me knows, and tells it you, 
             And tells it you. 
So blind is life, so long at last is sleep, 
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, 
             And none but Love, 
             And none but Love.


______


Evening Song Twice
O.L.P. 1950-


Dear love,
your soft sleeping+breathing sounds require
Recitation of this, an Evening Song, singular thoughts,
           Save for only your love,
           Save for only your love,
Days are short, long nights grant permission,
Days are short, long nights grant commission,
            So dark are the seas of interruption,
The voids, the emptying spaces of inhibition,
Dim my eye lights, you, envisioned, me, tremulous and weak,
             Who knows when I shall see you again so clearly?
Of all things past, so well remembered burnishing caresses,
My heart within speaks, once more into the clouded atmosphere,
             Even as you sleep, my love, yet full on complete,
Tho my senses impaired, my thoughts thru your sleep, I’ll penetrate,
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, 
              And none but Love, 
              And none but Love.