"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Daniel Morgan

There is a bridge that's none too far
From that hillock to the sky.
Where the train is singing south,
Keep the road that crows still fly.

If my memory can guide
Past the tricks and turnabouts,
Straight there stays the old wood bridge
That endures spring hope and winter doubt.

Old boards will creak as witnesses
That here's the spot where her lips shared,
"I love with all the love God gave,"
She spoke as leaves combed through her hair.

Then the clouds were drawn away
By angels of a wingèd blur.
They pressed the stars behind to steal,
Wishing solstices would come closer.

Those leaves were prayers that filled up faith
With dreams that bloomed in every flame.
And Eden had another chance,
And God was never to be blamed.

For each of us held high borders
Like walled in countries neighbouring.
Always she'd waste in civil war
And could not come encircle me.

               Then she:
"For I've tried to tease smiles back
From your patient autumn eyes,
But you cheat with April's wink
That undoes my cool disguise.

"Softly now I fall to you
Even as we must draw near.
Yet it's the finger-tipping breath
Heightening all my female fears."

Between the windswept smells of evening
And a softness much like night,
I held a girl with small shoulders
That God knows once had wings of flight.

I marvel at the seasons change,
For you had eyes of calm and storm.
In return, I gave the chase,
Bared my heart, and laid my sword.

I hunted you across the hills
Beneath the moon-deep trees of frore.
You searched out seas, I waited on,
Until you showed again on shore.

Then suddenly you hit a root
And sprawled upon the autumn sky.
And it was pause enough to stop
While we could see each other's eyes,

Though I could barely make your shape
But for the blue of quietude.
Heaven above, Pisgah beneath,
And all on new verge of beatitudes,

We were free to wish without
The pleas young lovers bleat and bay.
But silence nature coldly hates
And covered us in black-veiled days.

So squinting hard, I thought I saw
A spark of hunger burning dark.
Thus I was left without defence
Looking on my ransomed heart.

With one quick pang it ended things,
The flash of my own steel inside.
You cleaved the heart still in your hand
I feel in dark through fires, and died.

Perhaps like horn and ivory,
Dreams are more fragile in effect.
They flutter, grow black, feigning death
When caught within dream-catcher's nets.