3


 
 
These letters, rolled like drops of sap along the spine
of a spindly cedar (hardened into crust).  My letters
to you – you, who have no need of letters
among your mirrors and lights.  They seep
toward you, and love you, sensing
you love them just as well.  
 

     The moon
was faint tonight, behind a smoky cloud.
Pale, bloodless, not quite round, yet
shining anyway, it lingered:  held
in the branches of a willow tree
like an empty goblet.  Silver
leaves lay down below – a crowd
of masks, a flock of repentant souls
from a Sienese fresco (surging around
the Rood of Heaven).
 

      Without you,
dear, my knowledge disintegrates, a new
encyclopaedia of dust.  All pledged
to rigid silence, under useless stars.

 
But if you were here... you would point
to the warm lights of a house nearby.  And
your other hand would reach for mine
like the sun.