4
Love-song For Tamara
I
The wind bears the name of a tide That the poet never knew existed To an arena dirtied By swords and swearwords.
He heard the soothing song In the name of a tide, He heard the unuttered prayer In the waves of a tide.
Among a gathering of glances TAMARA is the gale Sweeping a realm dirtied By war and scarred words TAMARA is the pain Feeding dreams to song.
II
But eyebrows swell Queries gasp, envy lurk In a comedy of glances:
“What is TAMARA? Who is TAMARA? Where is TAMARA?
If the poet knew, won’t he tell you?
A voice out of deep rivers She squealed the river’s secrets:
I was a water-spirit. I was freed To taste and tempt the human spirit. But now, I’m reborn In the Spirit of the Living God
If the poet knew, won’t he tell you?
III
He offered her his sad heart Wrapped in a sweet smelling flower Heart, the source, the nurse That rouses us so for love.
She offered him the shooting stars Of her eyes; she offered her face Where all the lines mint elisions Like love’s last imitation :
Suddenly he craved a last look At her face aging into this page.
Last night’s courting-place Persists in the glowing sun-trees It cannot guess the altered hearts Of its last tenants.
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SENTINEL POETRY #29, Online Magazine Monthly, April 2005, ISSN 1479-425X |