light and shade

By Coolhermit

Sun, 06 Dec 2020
  • 241 reads
 
light and shade
 
the curtains open and my dreary room
rainbow dappled by a crystal
hanging in the window
comes alive
 
the ceiling, the walls, the floorboards,
dance as light reaches for them
settles upon them -
clings to them
 
I return to my bed -
a brass and iron antique
that has stood the test of time
and births and deaths
 
heard prayers for healing
prayers for salvation,
lost souls' blasphemies
lovers’ pleasured gasping
 
and look around the room
counting rainbows
 
I sit at my garden pond -
an untended accident of soil -
teeming with an insect Olympiad
played out under blanket-weed
 
in apple tree shade,
my lover sips lemonade she made
she reads to me from the Psalms
the pages pinked with casual blossom
she brushes the petals away
and smiles
 
I have no god,
she is my hope,
but does not know it
 
at evening as light
lets fall its hold
she tells me to read
marks a page
closes the book, kisses me
and slips silently away
 
before I sleep
I open the book;
underlined for me,
 
“The Lord shall preserve
thy going out
and thy coming in
from this time forth,
and even for evermore.”

 

Certificate U
Poem
Spiritual