MOONTIME

“Time is the fire in which we burn.” - Delmore Schwartz

Time is an elastic concept. It’s made of mist and moonbeams, sunrays and shadows. Time crawls, time flies, time cheats us and rewards us. Time mocks us and is deadly serious in its dealings with us. Time alters our perspectives, shifts our judgment, changes our emotions and wreaks havoc with the way that we view the world. Time laughs with us, and at us. It can dry our tears or evince a flood of them where there was only pure joy just before.

This poem was written more than twenty years ago, when times were different for me and when the end of the world threatened to engulf me. Tears, pain, agony were mine then, and now I can barely remember the depths of the despair that I felt; the reminder being these words scratched on an old notebook. Time heals the wounds of the heart and dulls the pain of our soul. Our mind conspires with it and what was madness then, is only a sweet nostalgia now.

Nocturne in G Minor

In the serenity of sweet night
Which glides on softest skin like a caress,
I seek you still…
And when the moonlight calls out to me,
To bathe in its beams anew,
I cannot bear it, I must remember you.

But how can I find you?
How can I run to meet you
Now that my heart has lost its compass,
Now that there are no signs from you?
I seek you still…
And reason screams, and warns against it!
I must not repeat the same mistakes it tells me.

And yet, I search for you,
Your image faint and delicate,
Wandering like a lone firefly
In the dark fields of my mind.
I seek you still…
How can I not remember you,
How can I not desire you more than ever?

You left, and I promised I’d forget you.
I said it would be hard, but I would do it
Even if I had to reforge myself in steel.
And yet, each evening of the full moon
When that shining orb of ours rises,
It’s then that I miss you most.
I fail to keep my promises and I admit,
I love you even now,
I remember you evermore,
I seek you still…

Jacqui BB hosts poetry Wednesday