We spark
the kindling in ritual
as souls dance around us;
our bonfire keeps them at bay.
They never stray,
hoping to hold us, hug us,
whisper missings and tidings of comfort
to steady our bones for passage.

We wait
on rotting logs, gazing toward dawn,
entranced by flames and huddled together,
closely, with wet-iced eyelashes.
Our silent breathing scuttles away
on paths of pale white and moist,
out and sifted through our watchers' chests.
Their voices go unheard.
Who would hear conversation
from depths during an eve of fright?

We watch
the orange-red idol wane in the wind.
Odd, no? Shouldn't it be growing?
They're breaking though to us
so we embrace more closely,
latching, heartbeats bumping one another
keeping rhythm, keeping our stillness,
and fevered hands massage our shoulders,
erasing tensity, stiff limbs, lightness.

Smoke escapes our eye sockets
and they smile at our blankened faces.
Who are these people celebrating?

this scroll has been
erased
blankened by neglect
its anger has washed clear
the ink that once flowed
across
its parchment pages
those who pass it by
fail to see
the d y i n g
words.

where is the pen
that will embody
the white space
once again?

1.
Ah, yes. I do remember—in the annuls of the setting sun
Which gazed upon us cloister’d couple
Just as then when this begun—
How lovely you looked to me
When I first stooped to take your hand:
The air was pink from rushing blossoms
Blown as though caught where waves meet sand
Out o’er the horizon’s sea
Of lapis stones and perfect lilies,
Our marble vessel stood calm afloat
As Time she ceased her constant chatter
Our love, on eternity, she thusly wrote.
2.
A promise kept where we abide
I see the spell on you ascribed
As though not a minute since then had died
Our eyes are locked
As is my reverence
Wedded in both hand and Time
Union’d there upon the hill
One constant spirit, forever ‘twine
My hand in yours,
Your eyes in mine
And all the day a vernal eve.
3.
Forever faithful, ‘till we’re parting dust
N’er a band, nor jem’s allure
Compel me from this meeting just
And we’re betrothed
As one amorous, fixed stone
You’re my bride of marble pure
I, your husband, and yours alone.
4.
The snow must fall, but never does
Nor do hands of some final hour
The face of parting averts his glower,
And no such sadness entreats us here,
You only cry the tears of rain,
In concert so do I,
Even our sentiments commune where they ought,
And strain, does not
Our open home, where the live rest peaceful:
Espoused to none but plots and vine
Widowed from both bride and Time,
Pining for that permanence, the comfort of our kind.
For they the living, asleep and buried,
Rejoice at such, our fates prolonged,
For what it is: the stuff of dreams.
From thence, ‘till now, it tarried
And, just as then, you beam.
5.
Your blankened eyes are filled with me,
Not soiled by another sight
Beneath this alter of pallid stone
All I see is placid white:
My eyes filled with thee.
Many a-year may have passed
But we’re indifferent to present, future, past
And though our company is but the dead
They can watch us
Forever, watch us wed.
6.
That august sun, such reverie
Upon it portents I could read
A neverending waxen love
Into that permanence of history wove
That could proclaim, our sentiments same,
Into pink winds, through homes of the dead
The fused seasons through which we tread
Dismissing the failings of human emotion,
Embosoming a steady climb,
Thus envisaging the statue’s notion
That Eros decreed so few would find
Love protected by  Terminus
Its constellation we cusp.
7.
That craft’d on love, transcending this
Oceans of present, future, past
Our ship it sails on maxim, not mast,
A message to all the staring world:
Only a love like ours may last.