Rhapsody in Black
It begins with a heartbeat
an aching
a clench
with blood billowing
in a tree of bones
a need
like a bone tree reaching
yearning through the dark of a man
who turns his face to the sun
yearning
as if his chest is being torn
a man on his knees in a golden field
beneath a pale and dimpling sky
beneath the faraway halls of clouds
and the shimmering drone of insects
beneath butterflies
and the silence
who squeezes quivering hands
horror in his heart
a man screaming in a field of sunflowers
beneath a blue sky
deepening
.
For Kali
If I could but give shape
to that flameling of hope
enkindled
in the secretmost tabernacles
of my terrible heart
it would look much as you do
dear one
scampering ahead
like a splash of living gold
at play in the ferns
grown over the path
through a sunny wood
where cicadas sing
© M.P. Strayer
M.P. Strayer‘s work has appeared in numerous small press publications, anthologies, online journals and commercial magazines, most recently Aethlon: the Journal of Sports Literature, The Loch Raven Review, and Alien Dimensions.
The Loch Raven Review 