SPRING DAY

SEA

 

Cry as I yearn to!

 

My boundlessness could not contain the seas

I ache to shed nor could I succour you,

were I submersed in a universe of brine.

I, who begin and end

airless yet souled,

am cumbrous this dawn with cherry blossoms

strewn upon my memories’ wakes,

my spirit fettered to the immutable Pulse 

of eternal leave-taking.

I would not wrest breaths

and heartbeats – such is the grim province

of untempered mortal power

and gilded destinies.

My waves and tides bear

no waywardness or caprice;

I yield as you to Fate, enfolding all

whose odysseys she leads to my flowing gates.

 

Lament as I would, were I not tongueless!

Silence is my voice;

I languish as a playerless lute

till Sun, Winds and Moon ripple,

swell and curl my formlessness

into instrument and dirge;

I plash and roar, weave and wind,

through hollowed shells, over petrified flowers,

grappling with shadows deepening into my floors,

curving with pain

and clinging in vain

to unpliant shores I cannot move

to canticles or commiseration.

Womb of life and fluent grave,

chaos of glass, wilderness of change –

I am graven and gravid with myriad metaphors

and thronging mythemes,

yet alone as an island apart

in our mutual sorrow,

solemnly solitary in my fluid skin.

 

My waters rise with vapourous trails to sail awhile

as fleeced fleets

through a brighter, farther blue;

salt masses heavier in my core,

roiling and riving,

shivering and shriving,

as a maelstrom of swirling stones

in atonement for earthly trespasses,

this ritual torment quieting the desolate fury

and disharmony within, birthing a thirst

for the peace of restoring cascades.

 

Unseen forces shape us,

unknown devices and hands

return us to ourselves each circle,

renewed, enriched or impoverished,

as Time’s rhythms ordain.

Therefore, honour our grief,

our hearts’ measure of love and meaning lost,

of the light a vernal darkness claimed.

Mourn lost Springs with tears and smiles!     

Weep rainbows into April’s sunshine!

I, who merge realms, shall take unto myself

the streams of your eyes as the Season’s first rain.

 

© 2021 Lilium candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image: twitter.com