charity

the way she spoke, through teeth,
led me to believe her heart wasn't in it
she played the lie with cramped tongue
tucked behind immovable ivory gates
i did not choose this path for you or
call you by a masked name
you stand in high cut dress
the stone cold beneath your slippered feet
"the pay is good" she reminds herself
with Christmas 'round the corner and
nephew's love for their aunt
making mindful of the season
(the lie's made just a little easier)
i see it all at once in those dark eyes
the terrible truth of her humanity
it cuts too close for me to
play the dark charade
and turn my back to go away
my strict morality will leave her penniless

Her eyes

Her eyes a mirrored wonder
Moonlit silver doubled
Shimmer like the heated land
A supplicating hand to
Open air between us
Drawing ancient runes
Upon a crystal thread
In drops of dew and blood
"You've waited long
Upon the virgin ground"
(Her voice like golden
Light on morning fields)
"Has time at last
Reached fullest hour?"
The sign: her star shines  
Upon the mountain brow
As constellations churn the
Ether sea
Eclipsed beneath a mirrored
Wonder crashing into me

Through Elysian Fields

"In no fix'd place the happy souls reside.

In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
By crystal streams, that murmur thro' the meads:
But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
The path conducts you to your journey's end."
This said, he led them up the mountain's brow,
And shews them all the shining fields below.
They wind the hill, and thro' the blissful meadows go.

-Virgil

she opened

she opened
starry eyes
on glowing world
forty years ago
gasping autumn air
as red leaves
hovered in the
misty trees
as beautiful as these
in parent's aching hearts
watching as she starts
to know their face
"will her years be
full of grace?"
they wonder
how her journey
will unfold

"forty year's old"
they write
inside the gilded card
(how far this child
has been and seen
beneath the climbing sun)
"happy birthday" in the
book with papered lines
she reads with
shining eyes
oh goodbye to
memoried yesterday
today she's
born again