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To Err With Doves (Free verse) by MacFrantic
I stand outside,
my body trembling in the hues of rain.
Wide drops birthed on my naked mind:
clarity a surrogate to vacuity.
The smart gargoyles turn their heads,
Double-take, and dismiss my glare.
I look at them for their doves;
sunken, feathered gasps of air.
Dueling futures strike me now
To become with gargoyles,
or to err with doves, in the rain.
I appear in plumes on the ledge,
but am naive to think to trick them so.
I will reach out; hope with fingertips.
I will not reach; they are foul.
What are doves to me?
My feet are cold, icebound fixtures,
and they mock me, in the rain.
I am crying and they know it.
The glassy windows reflect my fury; my subjection.
Where I meddle I may fall.
To err with doves is to cut my palms on the stone,
and I cannot see them for my life.
Gargoyles, beseeming, claim my hand.
I collapse into nothingness;
I fall to fly.
God,
'tis wonderful.
Speak of me proudly
as I lay in sight unseen.
Be merry
in what mourning spells.
Here, the bottom-sides
of ledges sparkle
in the sixth-rising sun
since my death.
The gargoyles are lucky in spoils
to send what I spare in the divine.
Up to the doves,
I craft of the earth a guilty word:
"To send me where I slumber,
I divide you from your host.
Oh glorious piping lords,
I live in dreams where you remain."
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