the sound of soft fingertips across the strings of a lute.
strumming the memories. humming the melody of life.
and I am lost in the possibilities of your presence,
pleasant, peasant prayers that lead to the summit
of the mountain in the distance, where legends reign.

kings cannot know this brandywine. princes pass perplexed.
and all the bishops seem ignorant of the nature of God
when their ignorance of the crux of creation is displayed,
paraded in the sudden dance of a smiling child by the fire.
and I am lost in the reverent reveries of this revelation.

play for me that melody, the one you tried to teach me,
you tried to reach me with when I despaired of lost love
and the angels and faeries all seemed annoying pinpoints
that pricked and sticked and stole the moment that was mine
and you came for me, barefoot and arrogant, like a poet.

and the fires swam into the sky and I, I was reborn.
torn to pieces and re-assembled like a patchwork skirt
to brush your bare legs in the summer heat and to defeat
the angry winds that would come down from the mountains,
mounting the horses of hoarfrost to charge your charms.

I live now, in more than just abstract recollections of a score
of forgetful lovers who would not give me second thought
were it not for the trinkets of my words they wear as bright badges
as they tell their tales of the pale blue moon of memory.
and they don't wear the patchwork skirt of my love. or play the lute.


copyright William F. DeVault