Not Here

My days are deer leaping from sight before they are seen,
shadows spreading into night before the sun ever rises,
eyes that close without ever opening, masked disguises
with nothing behind them, bitter or sweet words that mean
anything but what they mean. The world's torn at its seams,—
heart from mind, flesh from bone,—and these eyes
that watched Love's body as it suddenly seemed to rise
like some saint towards heaven now only blaspheme
her memory, for she lies beyond the gauze of stars,
before and after any time I knew her, like some comet
whose life is mostly beyond our sight, whose solitary life
is life itself. And so as my own life seems lived from afar,
my hair turning, my body failing, I struggle within time's net
to dream her soul beyond all time, beyond this veil of strife.

Copyright © 2002 Richard Jackson All rights reserved
from jubilat four
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission