once upon a murky gleaming, while I sat in peaceful dreaming,
haunted by the golden streaming of a sun I knew before;
while i lingered, senses slipping, sudden came a memory, dripping;
dripping soft as footsteps; tipping o’er a childhood door.
“’tis a dream,” i whispered faintly, “just a dream, and nothing more,
    just the dawn, and nothing more.”

ah, i well recall the hour, twin in soul and form and flower,
two in gait, in skirt and collar, bound for days that soared and tore.
hand in hand we walked unknowing, where the amber sky was glowing,
past the railing, wind still blowing, through a world we’d yet explore,
past the gleam and fading laughter down a bridge of evermore...
    gone, it seems, forevermore.

and the warm and wistful trailing of her shadow, faint and failing,
fell across my thoughts like ashes from a hearth now cold and sore.
strangely stilled was all her love, changed her tone to aching woe,
gone the warmth, replaced by woe, cold and clean behind closed doors.
“speak,” i begged, “the one I cherished, has she vanished to some shore?”...
   but the silence answered, “nevermore.”

then I climbed a roof, forsaken, sunset gold and soul mistaken,
there to gaze on roofs and fences of a life i held before.
she, the girl with pigtail braiding, now in poise and poise parading,
spoke in tongues of grown detaching, eyes that sought my own no more.
“has the night devoured her laughter, locked it past some inner door?”
      still the air replied, “no more.”

o, how softly sang the twilight! once we shared this selfsame skylight,
now i watch alone, in silence, as the orange embers pour.
roof and ridge in shadow yawn, and all the girl i knew was gone,
changed to stranger sharp and drawn, who held my hand no more.
and the sky, once wide and wondrous, seemed to whisper from its core:
    “you shall find her; nevermore.”

was it time that drew the curtain, or some sorrow, slow but certain?
did she walk ahead in yearning for a self she fancied more?
did i falter? was i clinging? while her soul began its winging,
winging toward a world where union withered into folklore?
still I searched the golden fading, still I reached, forever sore,
      she is not the girl before.

so i sit, alone, in grieving, sun and shadow interweaving,
all the bridges burnt and silent that we crossed in days of yore.
and within that glow descending, I saw not her form, unbending,
but the ghost of all pretending we had ever been before.
now my soul, beneath that sunset, whispers softly evermore:
      “she is gone, and nothing more.”

it was so long and so long ago
  in a gloaming-lit room where the lamplight lay low,
that i, with the hand of a slumbering saint,
  summoned a spirit from water and paint.

no angel in heaven had garments so fair,
 his robe was of lustre, his crown made of air,
and his wings, they were tremulous shawls of the sea,
 and he looked; yes, he looked; ever rarin’ for me.

i knew not his name, nor the path he would take,
 but i dreamed him in silence, for dreaming’s own sake.
and i left him alone in the hems of the sky,
 where the clouds chimed gray and the years drifted by.

but o!—through the tombs where the sun-blind are led,
 he wandered, he wandered, the palette of dread,
till the Lord, in a hush, let His finger unbind
 the brushstroke from Time, and the thought from my mind.

and he fell like a stain from the hand of a heir;
  as dew falls unseen on the throat of the air.
with the sigh of a page that has turned in the gloom,
 he came to my door as if risen from tomb.

he remembered the lines i had drawn as a child,
 the blush in his cheeks, and the colors run wild;
his voice freed the sinners and demons from Hell,
 as though all the old noels had forgotten to dwell.

he bore not sacral swords from kingdoms above,
 but eyes that had wept through the ink of my love.
and he whispered—o Heaven!—he whispered to me:
 “i searched all the stars, but you painted the sea.”

now each day that i bide in the shade of his grace,
 the world is a shush when i gaze on his face.
for he walks with the mumble of chants that were true,
 the cherub i painted, who came when fate knew.

and though men may scoff, and though suns may implode,
 the colors still bloom where my longing abode.
for love, in its balm, is a sacred decree,
  and he is the seraph God borrowed from me.