I watched you grow strong
I reached out; with my right hand,
Felt your left shoulder.
I felt you touch me,
Take hold of my left shoulder.
I still feel you there.
I heard what you said,
And watched your words fly away.
I knew you heard me.
Now my words have gone,
Wrapped in the words of others,
But not completely.
Withal such love within our worlds may be:
So must it live within our mind’s frontier?
Or might it dwell within our heart–sincere
Within our soul–wherein we may not see?
Can this I feel, though cannot touch in thee?
May such as this, made manifest, appear?
Or when such love perceivest thou, revere?
Dost this thou feel, though canst not touch in mee?
Yet of this unseen thing are we aware,
As much we would this phantom to possess;
For all its joys impart or its despair
Doth bring to us when once this thing profess.
So dangerous a thing should we declare,
That oft might curse, as well as it might bless.
When all my time on God’s green earth is done,
This unrelenting march shall make me whole.
For dust is but the only worthy goal
For which all mortal men may strive as one.
What Death, what vast poetic end may come
To Thy reluctant servant? Death from gold?
Or from a love as fervent and as old
As Death from flesh, from opium, or rum?
O God Almighty give me pristine dust
That pray, I may obtain my perfect form.
Thy worn, reluctant, sword desires to rust,
And thence return to nature safe and warm.
And though I know that this can never be;
I dream a mortal’s immortality.
Fitting for the end
Of a year–of all those days
Now behinds us. Gone.
Newborn, such loneliness should here remain
A silent secret not by choice revealed.
In pride, such bitter pain could be concealed
To hide the habit dark of the insane.
I now would choose to force such better days–
In forcing such, enforce a practice old
Of being happy; so to be consoled
By doubting not the wisdom of my ways.
In life, I pave the road of happiness
To happiness; I cover stones of grief
To see all anguished light through sombred smoke.
And so I go, and smile as I bless
The heart, as I would bless its bitter thief–
An next I die, on too much joy would choke.
More spring than winter
Because it is next of love,
More than first of year.
Every day takes me
In, and out, of everything.
I never doubt it.
And brings a lot more
Than it takes away from me.
It leaves me with love.
Except at the last.
One day, it will either give–
Or take everything.
David Emeron: Sonnets 