STROPHES

An aeon of gales batters this stricken
mountain; melancholy dwells
upon its foreboding facade. The murmur
of its tumult haunts my dreams
as the echo of storms smiting jagged
cliffs of a distant rocky reach.

Destitution left her mark upon the soul
of our land, its ghost to be
passed into the waters, into the blood
of all it formed and nourished,
these to lull into an eternal stupor of
resignation. Such is our demesne, one
of masquerades, of words that
convolute and confound.

Night smiles upon all alike, her dewy
irises in sharp contrast with
the moon, clad in lank, feathery veils,
peering askance from behind
a purple balustrade at the pretension
of an unworthy child who would
strive to write the book of starlight.

Beneath an inky diaphane, at the feet of
this dark blue-green age, I seek
the rhythm of Poseidon's ichor, of ancient
strophes and layered strains 
betwixt the roar of winds and waves, 
impatient for their fickle sounds to come
into tenderest accord.

In the distance, a lone seafarer perpends
Nature's panoply, as if to embrace
the brine that birthed him, that moulds his
spirit anew with each nautical
traversing. His eyes hold the tides, this
oracle of the skies; his heart
spans the horizon. His smile bids me limn
my strophes, my journey.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: SEA VIEW BY MOONLIGHT
Source: www.wikiart.org
Artist: Ivan Aivazovsky