Poetry

Poetry, my Ars Poetica
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you where at last they chained and bound you;

with devices all around you to torture and confound you,

I found you--shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair and taken both your eyes

which, once cerulean as Gogh’s skies, had leapt at dawn to wild surmise

of what was waiting there.

Your back was bent with untold care; there savage whips had left cruel scars

as though the wounds of countless wars; your bones were broken with the force

with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair.

*

You once were loveliest of all. So many nights you held in thrall

a scrawny lad who heard your call from where dawn’s milling showers fall--

pale meteors through sapphire air.

I learned the eagerness of youth to temper for a lover’s touch;

I felt you, tremulant, reprove each time I fumbled over-much.

Your merest word became my prayer.

You took me gently by the hand and led my steps--from child to man;

now I look back, remember when--you shone, and cannot understand

why now, tonight, you bear their brand.

*

I will take and cradle you in my arms, remindful of the gentle charms

you showed me once, of yore;

and I will lead you from your cell tonight back into that overwhelming light

which flows out of the core of a sun whose robes you wore.

And I will wash your feet with tears . . . for all those blissful years . . .

my love, whom I adore.

Originally published by The Lyric