I see a trace of moon yet, though morning
is fully on its way. What flutters through
the screens of bamboo as if on the strains
of a highland flute? I love those times
when the body has not completely left
what embraced it last; when coming
down the stairs it glances back at the bed
where it lay, reviewing the rousing
and the gathering up of things, the lingering
farewell; unlatching doors, going out
and walking past the jasmine bushes just
starting to put out their little stars.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Always a Story
- Landscape with Sudden Rain, Wet Blooms, and a Van Eyck Painting
- Letter to Implacable Things
- Landscape, with Cave and Lovers
- Miniatures
- Letter to Self, Somewhere Other than Here
- Ghazal with a Few Variations
- Letter to Silence
- Landscape, with Returning Things
- Postcard to Grey
- Not Yet There
- Letter to the Street Where I Grew Up (City Camp Alley, Baguio City)
- Between
- Parable of Sound
- Letter to Providence
- Glint
- The Beloved Asks
- Letter to Longing
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Twenty Questions
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Interlude
- Villanelle of the Red Maple
- Letter to Leaving or Staying
- Salutation
- Letter to Love
- Letter to Fortune
- Territories
- Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- Singing Bowl
- [temporarily removed by author]
- Risen
- Refrain
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Dear heart, I take up my tasks again:
- [poem temporarily hidden by author]
- Dear season of hesitant but clearing light,
- Risk
- Vocalise
- Tremolo
- Interior Landscape, with Roman Shades and Lovers
- Bird Looking One Way, Then Another
- Gypsy Heart
- Like the Warbler
- Landscape with Carillon
- Letter to Ardor
- Landscape, with Salt and Rain at Dawn
- Marks
- Landscape, with Sunlight and Bits of Clay
- Slaying the Beast
- Measures
- In a Hotel Lobby, near Midnight
- Landscape with Shades of Red
- Between the Acts
- Letter to Duty
- Letter to Nostalgia
- You
- Song of Work
- Balm
- Landscape, with Wind and Tulip Tree
- From the Leaves of the Night Notebook
- Letter to What Must be Borne
- Redolence
- Letter to Myself, Reading a Letter
- Night-leaf Tarot
- Trauermantel
- Foretelling
- Aubade, with Sparrow
- Reverie
- Mineral Song
- Layers
- Prayer
- Proof
- Landscape as Elegy for the Unspent
A NOCTURNAL FUGUE
I love those times/when the body has not completely left/what embraced it last.
1.
By sunrise, the strain on the highland flute
has reached a decrescendo ending a sky dance:
the moon fades, the sun rises, a tale told
often enough it has spawned its own legend:
they are lovers who must in the morning part
as a besotted night must leave its rising day
like one whose body cannot completely leave
what embraced it last. Like love lost and found.
2.
What magic these celestial wonders have
over the awestruck and fevered lovers
vanishes like the lambent moonglow at sunrise,
when the moon glimmers into its dying pallor,
its lingering light languidly laving the river
stream that ends around the dreamer’s bend.
A ravenous sun eats all that evening splendour
sworn to by all hearts that have loved and lost.
–Albert B. Casuga
04-20-11