FOR YOONGI

                         INDIGO

 

Undesired, unbidden immolator of monodies

made of Sea and Eye and Spring,

you rain down on a Ruin of unfinished poems

and tomes of ages past,

on odes to a Scythe, paeans to Despair

and elegies to a Flower.

 

Veins aflame with twilit blue sear a blooming

curse on my tongue;

would you tear me from the inanition,

the self-naughting i sought for a grave?

Are you Guardian of the Portal to Me, that you

would foil the Reaper?

 

Must i perish on Your pyre of Light, remake my

likeness from it? Must i heed Your

hortatory rhymes that reach for skies i shall

never see? How shall i unlearn

the rhythm of my truths, of unwinding the Clock

its Master has worn into my knuckles?

 

i ponder the string of phantoms in my Crystal,

spectres black interludes

so lovingly wrought urging me to live backwards,

to remain eternally behind my story.

Welcome, now, bright Estranger of my darkness,

my Touchstone, my Measure of Life.

 

I dive forward from my shallows into Your depths,

into Indigo that sounds the course

of dreams entombed in colours of fading memories.

My silence I barter for Your song.

A Shadow glides over today’s ground, as I finesse

my way through a new Fire.

 

Your tears stream from my eyes, Poet of the Soul,

as we pen our healing.

#SonOfMyHeart

 

© 2020 Lilium Candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image 1: www.twitter.com

Image 2: commons.wikimedia.org

BE

“Be, this moment”, Twilight bids me.

“Live for breath and brume to spell.

Care and labour e’er disqui’t thee;

yet, my Word thy Soul must tell.”

 

“Quill and page this hour let slumber;

o'er my vastness contemplate.

Line and verse a Dawn shall number,

weary measures animate.”

 

“Thinkest thou thy creed I know not?

Beauty dost thou aim to serve;

Truth, her kin, hast thou in vain sought,

flamant balm to lend thee nerve.”

 

“Her path thou tracest, eye to Flame,

seest not that She leadeth thee.

Her art or plan thou mayst not claim,

sole bestowed felicity.”

 

“Mournst thou for meaning forsaken

or for inspiration failed?

Unto Time such shall be taken,

by and by to Life unveiled.”

 

“Dreams to skies now blithe surrender;

visions gay the rain shall bear

to mead and mount, rainbow splendour

blossom, leaf and field shall wear.”

 

“Wholeness seek in still reflection,

silent soundness shall find thee;

heed thine inmost Light’s direction

soft, yet stout of heart to Be.”

© 2020 Lilium Candidum

Lily's Verse

Image: HERBIG-HARO OBJECT IN THE ORION B MOLECULAR CLOUD COMPLEX

Image Credits: NASA/ESA

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

STORM

Hail the storm! Pace the swelling river,

spurring your black steeds along

its bludgeoned banks!

Our blood bedizens the altar

of your golden calf –

such shall be your spoils.

You wince as I feast on a skeleton leaf

on parched land amid dead sheep;

take heart, name your triumphs,

count the ribs of my cathedral,

bone upon curving bone,

this sanctum to the numbness you cultify.

The bird embalmed renders

the seer silent, as you jubilate

in orchards whose fullness is discord.

You kill today,

stuttering your resolve to resurrect

tomorrow through a snarling

chorus of whispers from a ghost land

screaming blunted discontent -

consequence of your selective muteness.

You search the evening laid out before you

like a threadbare rug,

while I prospect for blossoming beyond

shadows along my ring of Solomon

darkening into the past tense.

A barren branch beats a dead drum.

The only honour done you shall be when

you no longer breathe.

© 2020 Lilium Candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image: A STORM

Artist: René Magritte 

Source: wikiart.org

CATHERINE

Does your gaze probe depths your heart

alone knows? Does it trace

the damask roses upon the velvet rug?

Your eyes wear an uncertain light,

as though seeking a name for your hope,

melding the ephemeral

with the ineffable into a disquieting epistle

of blood, history and vision.

You stand before a master immortaliser,

conspicuous yet insubstantial,

resigned to this vacant hour, a pause

undesired yet imposed,

not the glutting respite you would greet.

Autumn’s leaf-drunk rays dapple your locks,  

a fleeting reprieve of amber-green

from reconciling shadows with darkness,

as you await your labours.

Blessed labours, for within their bounds,

you are alchemist and artificer,

in this world but not of it, for you feel and

speak unperceived; with your task

you breathe as one, hands and senses

surrendering to scents and hues,

buffing and shining a bounty of grapes and

plums, setting cabochon clusters

of fragrant amethyst and garnet into gilded

bowls with the faithful craft

of the King’s jeweller.

An unsung song weighs heavy in your throat, 

as you hurry past a laughing fount

to the rosarium beneath a sky where clouds

were once ships of dreams,

now transformed into a solace of angels

suspended in prayer. Into a bower of saffron

and ochre you stumble, as a grain of gold

settles upon your eyelash,

parting the dark. A new force colours

your gait, the blood-deep rhythm of the tribe

that dons nature’s pigments and sings

with the winds. Eve walks among late roses,

she, who braved the elements fell-clad

and unshod with earth between her toes.

Her footsteps sweep and echo across the ages

as she goes to compose floral poesis,

slowing to curve around a stray citrine shoot

glistening as a lost gem

through a crack in the paving. A smile ghosts

across her face, this witness

to a silent mutiny, for a moment of living won,

a moment returned to life.

Her own voice calls from across a world to

brighter grief, to a fire that is

the promise of home, of the spirit’s dwelling.

© 2020 Lilium candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image: Portrait of an African woman Catherine

Artist: Albrecht Dürer

Source: www.wikiart.org

FELL

Silence falls upon a cup,

slower than the sunset,

denser than night.

The clock ticks quieter,

its hands shaping

the unborn in the unstill

space into tomorrow’s

peace.

The fire in the grate

resiles from cowering,

solacing corners gravid

with blear echoes,

warming flagstones worn

and scarred by

fell boots that ground dust

and spirits in a soundless

rite of passage.

Knouts of tallowed leather,
once tall and proud,

now lie lodged beside

their liege lord,
the felled by the fallen.

Alone I weep waxen drops

in the transfigured air.

Light drapes its way over

garden and hedge

into a shadowed lane.

The gloaming curls into

a smokeless pipe,

as a waft smooths a page

darkness owns.

At dawn, doves shall return.

© 2020 Lilium Candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image: MAN IN A BOWLER HAT

Source: wikiart.org

Artist: René Magritte 

FOR YOONGI

INTRO: NEVERMIND

"I carved you even as you made me;

I could not discern your vector

nor myself on your reaches, merely

the goals of steps and end;

I faded into your thorns and roses,

your marks and milestones -

I would not rob my purpose

of breath or vision."

"Your absence tinges my memories,

as I reminisce, crown in hand,

on tender years that carried me

through reproof and scorn.

Misfortune bent me to its will,

yet resolve lent my spirit

spine and vigour."

Yes, I took that leap of faith into

a new unknown, safe in the

knowledge that I would harness

the currents and touch the skies

or plummet to my fate

in equal glory. Yes, I rose and fell,

seizing tears and smiles alike.

You, of a world that nurses its ire and

dread, painting me small, broken

and blighted, could your words

curb my heart? Could they wing

the angels of my conviction?

I stand before you, inspired, whole,

as your Book lies unopened and

your dreams gather dust.

You, whose future mourns the decay

of your past, I look now upon

your derision with eyes set higher,

that have seen farther

and more profoundly than my days,

even through your blind

changelessness to your abiding

sense of futility.

And I hurtle still toward my destiny,

toward struggles and endeavours,

questing after light and darkness.

What is defeat to youth

but a passing sky?

#SonOfMyHeart

© 2020 Lilium Candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image 1: www.twitter.com

Image 2: commons.wikimedia.org

FOR YOONGI

FIRST LOVE

Little hands wafting the pureness

of childhood play,

the sweetness of tangerines,

the trust of the everyday,

to their unlearned touch,

your ebony and ivory intoned

Love itself.

You laid claim to my heart, as it

hopped a staccato path

over your byway of blessings in

white and black,

tones of honey and amber

marking the contours of dreams

and waking hours alike.

Through blooming years I grew,

unmindful of your mahogany

tinting my vision,

of the softness and spaces of your

keys and clefts imprinting

my fingers, of your sounds of

felt-kissed steel curling as velvet

clefs into my ears.

Time cast its layers on your lustre,

as new adventures called.

We glided through seasons -

allegro and largo, piano and forte -

parted, though never apart,

for we had composed a light that

circled us across miles and minutes.

Did I cease thinking of you or did I

neglect to remember you?

Fortune ordained my return to your

welcoming warmth, to the keeper of

my unblemished joy,

to the one who held my brightest,

most vital theme.

With laughter and weeping, we

melodised and harmonised

through days of unknowing and

nights of despair.

In your tranquil aspect, I sought

my wholeness, as an uncalm world

mirrored my brokenness.

You chronicled victory and defeat,

as I yielded to the hammers of Fate,

penning your manuscript of my

wayward course, conferring symbols

on every card I was dealt,

gathering flowers that withered

on my vision’s bough.

We shall endure, truest companion

of my soul’s seeking,

through my journey’s every zenith

and nadir, through winters I am

too weary to muster meandering

vignettes and notes,

till Life’s metronome beats no more,

my constant star in every darkness.

#SonOfMyHeart

© 2020 Lilium Candidum

Lily’s Verse

Image: www.twitter.com

Image 2: commons.wikimedia.org