The Foibles of a Dream*

The Foibles of a Dream[1]

 

-A Most Heartbreaking Dream-

 

Why suffer the uncertainties of night

To burn but like a candle in the gloom,

 

When our best hope in life is to remove

From loving in the squalor of a tomb?

 

Why conjure all the foibles of a dream

But for the sake of what must surely fail?

 

For love cannot enfold us in her wings,

And only hopeless longing can prevail!

 

How is it that I know not of your death?

But learn of it, at once, as my soul slips

 

Into a realm where it is carved in stone

 And subject to my trembling fingertips!

 

---

 

Only now, do I revisit my love affair with a butterfly,

Innocent and not knowing what I thought of her -

A perfect act of God, different from all others,

 

Held only once and briefly -

And still loved a lifetime later.