But For Her

But for her, what would this year have been?

Had not the frost of sadness sunken in?

Would these bleak days ne'er come to see an end, 

With love and laughter right around the bend?

If she had not, with cunning so forsook, 

So given me that coy, discerning look, 

I think my days of fruitfulness were gone, 

Without the flowers I now see anon. 

Yes, now my lanky arms do seem as sails

To fly me through, my back to many gales; 

And 'tis for her, the lighthouse in the storm, 

Whose kind face makes my blood to keep me warm. 

Her warming now the joyous light of Spring; 

This month the hatchling shall take to the wing: 

And I will catch it as it gently flies, 

Soaring upward, out into the skies.

The Morning of His Day

He rose on the morning of his day 

And looked into his future: 

He saw himself in the robes of a king; 

In the castle of which he dreamed; 

He saw his Dream awake and kiss him in his sleep. 

And, all the while, he, a finch in the crocodile's jaw, 

Did what he could in his time. 

He looked into his past: 

At the miles travelled over ground, and

At the futility thereof. 

All around the child the world spun, 

Letting its pieces fall into his arms; 

And the pieces lost were lost to all. 

The rule of his father smote itself, 

Back into the stars and never seen again. 

He looked into the present: 

And it was his day; 

And he knew he was as pure as the sea and the earth; 

And his love would flourish in the garden of the people, 

For his love was kind, and unashamed, and new. 

And he knew that they were only themselves together, 

And that she, too, would begin to see in time. 

For only time was what they had: 

And he did not yet wear his father's robes; 

And he saw that he was naked, 

And he was not ashamed.