A Song on the Plain

Close your eyes and find your rest in the long refrain of the heartbroken piper and listen: as each haunting note caresses your fragile, sobbing heart like petals falling on a still, clear lake, each one hurrying ripples of change across the still waters, night falls.

Walk down the plain like a clothes-tattered vagabond as the teardrops of heaven begin cold, tentative kisses. Ones soft, others blinding, as from lovers and loves, within and without, the brush of lips removed from their meaning on your cold, trembling skin. Through leaden-step wandering and silken-hand grasps, find solace.

Shiver and hide from the winds of the plain that cut: now as a butcher, then with his knife, to your heart of hearts. Pull that comforting, worn, rain-soaked cloak around like a shield. A familiar barricade of burdensome armor from the world, its wetness clings like a lover; retreat.

Search for the song in the depths of your soul: one note and a hum and a minor-key strain, and close once again those red-tearful eyes. Now dance: so slowly in the secret ballroom of your innermost nights with a dream-partner lady so close, so tight, and smile: through tears and fears and bone-chilling cold, there was peace.