UNDER THE LUNAR INFLUENCE

When I write I'm merely talking to myself, very often completely oblivious to the prospect of eavesdroppers. My words should probably best be ignored rather than absorbed. Private thoughts are not always easily interpreted or appreciated.

Tonight I'm under the influence of the full moon - which has a habit of disturbing the solace of a lonely night with the resurrection of slumbering memories. 

I toss and turn in a tangle of damp sheets and the stifling embrace of a humid room. Then I get up, sit by the open window and inhale a pallid breath of midnight air. The night is a gentle infusion of thickly clustered trees, silvery patches of moonglow, and the random neon-blink of fireflies.

In this deceptive hour of sacred solitude, long-closed chapters of my life unwittingly open and serve to haunt me with the tattered pages of distant things.

This rhapsodic night is not intended for those whose souls are devoid of poetry, nor those whose hearts are immuned to the poignant rapture of love. 

The ethereal moonlight of these midnight hours is reserved for the secret song of remembrance.

DEVOTION
(for W.G.H.)

When I think of you now
five years dead
it is impossible to perceive
the long burden of time that has spilled
beyond the threshold of our love.
It is too fresh in my memory:
that first autumn night
when a crisp November wind
wiped the stars clean
along with the slate of our future.

Those sacred hours after midnight
held the ripe secrets of our youth,
soaring with the sweet discovery
of each other,
singing with the eager prospect
of endless possibilities.

I tried to believe that eternal love
doesn't come this easily,
but the depth of our first kisses
forever expelled the thought
from my shadowed doubts
and united the scattered pieces
of our separate lives.

Where are you tonight,
when old memories resurrect
the timeless multitude of windswept stars
and lonely hours are filled
with echoes of our depthless devotion?

 Jon V.
from Love Letters to Ghosts




Note:
if you don't like poetry, you might like the fake photos on my other blog, at this link:
Cabinet of Curious Treasures