Winter Solstice

Winter solstice, the earth open wide

With a heart crushed like footsteps in snow

(((fictitious persons disclaimers implied

To all listening from rooftops below)))

It had rained and the air was like perfume outside

As the sky changed

We began when the ground was still dry

Planting vineyards where vineyards don’t grow

Shaping cypress with pitch on both sides

For the nights when our trumpets won’t blow

That regret still there circling like vultures inside

As your face changed?

They don’t stay inside

(there but for Thy grace go I...)

Through the eyes of machines, immaculate scenes

That had already passed me by

All the stars on the ground, Noah’s ark in the clouds

Set sail in the flood of my mind

The other animals drowned in blasphemous towns

And asked as they passed me by:

“was to do as I please a European disease?”

Winter solstice, the earth had closed down

So with breastplates of righteousness low

Searched for streams in the caves underground

Where the Baptists and bootleggers go

And you smile but your vampire complexion still shows

And your past shows

It’s really all that shows

(so often unrecognizably so)

Through the eyes of machines viewed immaculate scenes

That had already passed me by

All the stars on the ground, Noah’s ark in the clouds

But the thought in the back of my mind:

“does my misery feed a metaphysical need

That’s long since passed me by

Neither reasoning why

Nor offering reply?”

Dear my newlywed wife

You’re not the love of my life

It had already passed me by---

Finally grasping the line

Casting pearls before swine?