Love Poem In Filigree & Hickory

 

I was sitting on a filigree bench

on a balcony

with no building behind it.

Then I was dressed in black

at a funeral for my own loneliness.

The sun was warm

and the priest was a peacock.

My love, my love,

in your thousands of scarves,

you were there, and we slept in the sky--

your arms silver, mine indigo.

I wound rose stems around the filigree

at the balcony's edge,

red blooms seeking the sun, which was a breast.

Then I was wearing this poem

at a wake for my own loneliness.

There were little cakes

with icing as white as a page.

You were there, my love, each of us inside the other.

Then I woke, and wept,

the breath filling my body

like smothering smoke from wet hickory burning.

_______

for What's Going On? "Last Night I Had A Dream"

Music: Emmylou Harris Hickory Wind