Poverty

I.

When I stood beneath
autumn’s leaf, of crimson, gold,
the cool frost just beginning
to still the ground,
in measureless silence.

And the field wept
at the loss of flow’r,
each leaf a stately
gown to clothe the living.

Once you stood here,
Autumn,
beneath this same old tree,
but now you die,
as you live,
if you forget the
treasure of the country you love,
and the moment
in which we are reborn.

II.

The linen-clothed
virgin in white,
the perfume of myrrh,
and cooing of doves.

A thousand martyrs could
not give themselves
on any altar but mine.
But the blood of the poor
is innocent blood
in the church of virtue.

Two poets, two prophets—
Justice and Liberty
stand in the street,
clothed in ashes,
with oil for their drink
and tears their food—
in the blink of an eye
they see paradise,
and kiss heaven.

III.

The leaves fell
about us in a lattice
of red roses,
where our hearts
forever entwined
shall withstand adversity,
shall rise with the sun of
each new day,
shall break like waves
upon the shore,
shall be one.

IV.

The poverty of love
stands in a place
that money cannot buy.

The cathedral of time
streams light
into the eternity
of passion.

The doctrine of birth
qualms of pain
that can endure
the suffering
that makes strong.

The thesis of wit
laughs at the future,
ignoring fear
and separation.

V.

In a torturous chair
I could speak to you,
of foreign lands and people.

My hands would explain
what is unspoken
of the domestic love
that cleans and cooks,
that mends—
of the foreclosed world,
where violence never meets
womanhood eye to eye;
the harlot neither eats nor sleeps,
and her bed is of opium.

I do ascend my secret stair,
the light, a beacon to each sea:
the night, a horse I ride to heaven,
and an angel for each wing.

The potent remedy is swung,
a sickle to the dead and dying;
we tread softly in our dreams,
in gentle poetry unsung.

In a foxglove countryside,
drinking in the beauty
of the nape of your neck—
Europe’s royalty speaks:
of a peace deeper than dreams,
of a solace of homes that
cannot be uprooted in terror,
a gentle freedom
beyond language and time,
that once we overcame
on Normandy beach
the army of insurmountable furor,
and now over the roofs,
the storks fly home.

VI.

When one has found the road
to keep on,
and fight for truth,
Justice, and Liberty.

To wear the sword as if for the battle
on this shore and the next.

To salvage from the castle ruin
what is a babe in arms,
to claim from the undersea wreck
what is the gold.

VII.

One bright head following another,
one sentence flowing on another thought,
and the meanings converge
as old friends,
the memories wear like a garland.

The softened light of the lens
takes your portrait,
and like a painting you emerge:
radiant, with dewy smile.

Your eyes are large and brimming,
rosebud lips are the sweetness
of time incarnate,
the petals on the ground
in a veil of snow.

VIII.

I will...
I will be yours.
I will laugh with you
and tell stories beneath the stars,
and bury children in the leaves
with you.

I will climb the old apple tree
in the orchard with you,
I will gather shells along the shore
in summer,
and drink cider by the fire
in winter,
with you.

I will mend missing buttons,
and kiss tender tears
and hope for happiness
through the years,
because I love you.