Library

Sitting by the framed music of her window,
The church bells knell the evening lights.
Just as flocking wings gather in a litany,
We ferry our drooping shoulders home.

The throat is parched with the dust of time,
And the gaze returns from the inward mockery.
Far ahead glazed the sempiternal dance of the wine-drunk tide,
Mimicking the pale fires of our battering hearts.

Scratch the bottom of language,
And the flood runs out of water.
The walls breathe and shift in silence,
Blindly clock the noise, softly hold the voice.

They who dwell beyond the hour of sleep,
Of whose feather, a lightness sought,
Of whose youth, a sweetness fraught,
Buries a longing in your homeless soul.

An intruder upon this ancient covenant,
I lower my eyes to the prevailing sanity.
The insouciance involved is a pretence,
Must I continue or sigh?