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Estuaries,
Bequeathed ...
BY JONAH WINTER
- - - -
Within the inner sanctums of my gloaming,
there glow such candles illumining the wainscoting
none may see ... but fleeting spirits amidst
the gloom—the gloom (yet rapture!) harkening
an image from a time long past, assuaged
by time itself, which doth contain my betrothed ...
O Time, what hast thou done with my betrothed?
O Dream Divine, I linger in the gloaming
of thine sorrow, and cannot be assuaged
by this, the rapturous universe. Wainscoting
surrounds me. It comforts me, gently harkening
back, back to a world that is lost, lost amidst
a profusion of iris petals swirling amidst
iris petals swirling around my betrothed.
I sleep, and yet I wake, harkening.
I stand, and yet I wander. Into the gloaming,
I venture forth, not noticing the wainscoting
reaching out, though it cannot reach. Assuaged?
I daren't say that I am yet assuaged.
And yet, if I but had one hour amidst
the roses' afterglow, or the wainscoting,
that holy realm where none but my betrothed
dare stray, and in her wake, my sorrows, my gloaming,
I would, aloft the wings of harkening,
fly to the bedside of Grand-mama, harkening
all that cannot be seen, or heard, or assuaged.
Though I know not what that means, I know the gloaming
is pressing inwards, obscuring meaning, amidst
a darkening brook—nay, stream—where my betrothed
once floated, lifeless—as a piece of wainscoting—
until the Symphony of Love was ended. Wainscoting.
The very word is like unto the harkening
song of the meadow-bird, of which my betrothed,
entranced, might dream, perchance, to die—assuaged
but not forgotten: such loveliness amidst
such pain. I must return, I must return ... to the gloaming.
Inside the safety of my gloaming, the wainscoting
speaks to me silently, amidst the harkening
shadows that call "Assuaged!" to my betrothed ...
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