... and your young man shall dream dreams ...

"The heart cannot say, sometimes, but the hand and eye - if steady enough and clear enough - may shape a window for those who come after. Someone might look up one day, when all those awake or asleep in Sarantium tonight are long dead, and know that this woman was fair, and very greatly loved by the unknown man who placed her overhead, the way the ancient Trakesian gods were said to have set their mortal loves in the sky, as stars.

Eventually, morning came. Morning always comes. There are always losses in the night, a price paid for light."
-- Guy Gavriel Kay, Lord of Emperors


EASTER MORNING GHOST

You see this rough and ready frame?
It's walked the world, my silent friend:
I've tasted blood and grit between my teeth
and fought the desert, had it fight me back;
I've felt the Scottish sunsets take my hand
and lived to see the sunrise bear me home,
all weak and bloodied from that other world -
the battles won, at cost, against the night.
This body has its breaks and scars:
the cold white iron of demon claws,
the fiery lines they branded in my side,
my wrists, because I would not let them win.
I've held those demons on a leash,
I've held them by the throat and felt them beg
to be released - I've held them till they died.
This is the man I am, my silent friend,
but who are you?

I sensed you laughing gently in the dark
and knew despair - not mine, but yours,
as if you'd left it far too late to scream,
had swallowed up the sound and choked it down
until it grew and grew, took root and thrived
and wrapped its clinging vines around your spine.
I hear your bitter laughter edged with hope
and cry to see that long-forgotten scream
tear free and blossom into life,
in beauty and in solace and in pain,
like Eden bursting from your troubled breast.
I dreamt you thus - but when I woke
you were a fleeting flash of green
I couldn't place: who were you, silent friend?

I face the morning old, and so alone:
the wanderer and warrior confined;
the old man's eyes within a young man's face.
I put my back against these books
and face the wall, as if my longing stare
could pierce these bricks and gloomy city streets,
could travel on these Easter eagle's wings
and rise, unfettered, to the place you wait.
Who are you, Easter morning ghost?
Your presence fled before I learned your name,
but I can say with certainty and faith -
the faith of old men dreaming dreams
and young men's visions springing into life
- that I shall see you long before we meet.
And so, despite these walls I yet remain
two parts uncertainty, but one part hope.

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