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 …