Immortality

I.

When first you came down the path,
of a winter garden,
your hands took mine,
and now we walk, hand in hand.

The arid snow, fluent in white,
the gown of mist,
and clinging to each branch
the moment snowflake, truest.

II.

My eyelashes caught the snow,
and rose-red, my lips
spoke in chance verse,
vespers of the sky,
my honest prayer.

Hair of fragile gold,
and spirit of the yesteryear,
the claim to rivet
the dusk into the theatre of night.

III.

Here come the characters
playing their human nature,
vying for their whims,
reciting eternal soliloquy.

Each one is indifferent
to love,
and wants himself to aspire
to the highest place.

IV.

Let the play begin!
O mortals, become immortal,
with sincerest grace,
depend upon the timing
of the stage.

Rise as a star in nocturnal sky,
bright and shining,
speak the fire of lines,
follow the dance of moons,
lead the progression
of planets.

V.

Of Saturn’s lyre,
and Mercury’s harp,
Venus' flute,
and Mars’s trumpet.

When each shall traverse the
solemn sky, metered;
benign in dissidence,
birthed and rebirthed,
from dawn to sundown.

VI.

O orchestra of constellations
accompanying the prayer
of saints, the slight stride
of angel wing and halo,
departed from this world
into the next.

The music begins!
Its tempest ordered
and elite,
each note, the measure
of sin abstained.

VII.

I look into your eyes,
the playwright of times,
and in their sincere depths
taste the purity of love.

Only the one enamored prince of time
came on a gallant midnight steed,
through milky universe and earth,
to radiant countrymen and
white-clothed bride.

VIII.

Your sword is silver,
and your speech is clean—
I taste the moment of truth.

Cloistered in the inner chamber
behind the wrought iron gate,
sitting on the hard bench,
with Latin voices
mingling in the hallway:

Now for hours
I presume
to be a dying Christ,
without a motion,
without thought,
I stretch and die
under the crucifix,
on the cold stone floor,
hang on a cross—

Immortality.

My heart is
and always shall
be yours.