Beauty's Longing

Feather-fingered branches massage the morning sky--
a pale gray pallette awaiting a tarrying dawn;
voices from that distant wood echo
lower, far, far lower than my thoughts.
Music casts its magical curse on
my wooden ears of flesh, where the echoes die.

Elven languages leave me wandering,
wondering whether Tolkien heard them plainer:
songs across the western seas
where gray ships pass away, never returning...
Life of the song, heat of the flame, blindness of the light,
all beyond, far beyond my knowing.

But of Joy, Love, Truth, a mocking fragrance
bugles the hunt for one more day.
Through the gray a bow of promise breaks
and nettles of beauty pierce my stony depths.
At such tortured moments my soul would fly
into eager immolation, losing itself
in the One no mortal man could see, and live.


MNA
3.23.2016