Covenant

"My heart in hiding..."
              ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Windhover"

The fruit isn't yet visible  
     in the soil, though its rind 
and oils have coupled in the same  
     house. A firefly flickers 
in the bush, and you think of a long,  
     trailing list of everyone you ever 
knew that you will never see again. Shut 
     the windows against night and pretend 
the wind won't find you. Inside the throat 
     of the violin a road uncurls. At its end 
are cypress trees, trumpet flowers pulling    
     at vines amid the rocks; lights 
shining like love in the hills. You draw   
     the shade across the moon's face---  
it is so radiant and you are still  
     afraid of being so completely  
seen; of giving in to happiness  
     only to have it taken away.