A Gazelle on Saydnaya
What more graceful
sign of grace,
an icon for She
who kissed God's face?
What better end
to the flight-stretching bow
than heaven's bright glory
shot forth from the throne?
Cain slew Abel here;
man slew man.
But the gazelle leaps still
on Saydnaya's hills.
Laid Low
Every life ends in lonely grief;
all lovers rise and, rising, softly leave;
the lights upon the high and canvas sky
glimmer off and fade, afraid to die
but dying nonethless into endless void;
and I am left to live with loss and lie.
The wind on stormy wave moves the sea
but on the sand-scored stone there will not be
the slightest tremor; Heaven let it be
the stone, not sea, that settles inside me.
Every sun will set to gnawing night;
all faith to fear, and reverence to flight;
all love to loss, as sweetness turns to sigh;
all life to death, for love itself can die
and fall in shallow grave, mourned beside the road;
my mind alone is left, and shattered heart, to cry.
The sailor in the storm swallowed by the sea
struggles in his pain, but then is free;
first fear from love of life, but from life then freed.
Swiftly come the last; the first -- short may it be.
People always leave; that's what people do.
We have new friends to lose our friends anew;
not knowledge, might, or wealth will surcease buy,
for all will cease, all will fall, all will die,
all will fail, all deeds and works of man,
all laid low that once, but once, was high.
Can Even Death
All this world's minions
before death come to flatter;
but if I love you,
can even death matter?
The world's many waters
in tide and in flood
pour down upon us;
bt see -- all is good.
If you love me,
what does death matter?
By force and by arrow,
by bullet to brain,
by harm to the soul,
by tortures of pain,
if love bonds us both,
what death can then matter?
The stars in their courses
circle above;
God in His grace
descends like a dove;
though all this world's minions
before death come to flatter,
if our God is Love,
can even death matter?
