Poem: Excerpt 4

 

Beggars sat huddled

In harried rows;

 

Their bowls were made

From burnished gourds;

 

The Market was full

Of people

And every provision,

Fruits were in abundance,

Fowls quite plentiful,

The grain-store was good;

 

Yet, I heard the howling of dogs,

Wretched skeletons

Groveling in the gutters,

Beside themselves with misery,

Shouting their starvation to the world,

Unfulfilled creatures,

Unhappy with their lot,

Fast-fading into oblivion,

Their gullets choked with the gall

Of a violent hatred;

Meanwhile, t he dance had begun

When I bestirred myself

To participate;

Their voices rose in lavender tints

Evaporating in the mists,

Roses fell in profusion

And the cobbled by-ways

Clattered under my feet,

Clouds of roses

Clusters of lavender,

The fragrant echoes of a music, heard

And easily remembered,

Staining the garment of undress, with

The hues of a glory long-forgotten,

Alive somewhere

Within the catacombs, the winding corridors

Dusty with disuse, lighted urgently

By flashes of a reality

Which had stealthily crept away

Into the shadows of yesterday .

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From Canto 1 of The Harvest Season of Love Songs, 1997