MARBLES

17 November 2014

THE BEST YEAR

Being not an optimist
I am resigned to the fact
I shall not acquire the wealth I desire
I thirst for a peculiar, infinite type of wealth.

I’ll never keep it in a bank
Or watch it surge on the big board.
Philanthropy won’t be its role,              
I mean to share it all with you.

I want it plentiful as rain
Which overflows the riverbank
Abundant light in cloudless sky
The nonmaterial, ethereal I want.

I speak of love.
An infinite, measureless love
Harmonious with spirit and with flesh
A love of quiet reason, warm-hearted laughter
Whose flaws are light
As dust upon a cloudless crystal
-Weightless dust caressed away by breeze-

It’s rare such a love, but I will bargain:
Call to the stars, they gaze upon infinity
As it travels by-
Send him to me I’ll ask,
The stars have seen his sails and know his name.

I’ll bargain in the cruelest way I know:
A glimpse.  Bittering forces stars to listen
Let it last a month, a season, such a love
I’ll take it for a full year if I can,
A full year sounds very nice
And if then it must end, I’ll let go
I promise to be brave.

I will be brave
In defeat, brave in the severing.
I’ve known braveness in anger:
In their fortune,
How others squandered years of time
With you-
Why?
Live without discovery, not giving.
You.  Oh!

Perhaps one day…
Sharing even briefly a handful of infinity
And if not, I will dream:

I am awake in this dream
And I have fantasized of everything,
Even the necessity for tangible wealth,
Always an annoying detail
To pester romantic hearts.
I wager, for the tangible
Small, finite digits will suffice:

I have
Enough to buy us freshly baked loaves
Imported cheese and olives,
Enough to build a hearth from weathered fieldstone
And dress our bed with perfumed sheets, soft and smooth.
We’ll need sandalwood scented soap,
Pencil, pen, and paper,
A computer if we must.
We’ll get seeds for our garden
And splurge on a few hybrid perennials.
Candles also.  To light away the dusk.
That should do it for necessities.
The luxuries we will invoke together
As we embrace in the dark.
You’ll blow out the candles, smiling, one by one,
Together we will conjure a different fire
Its flames of inextinguishable desire
Fueled by a wealth
Of love.