'Early Riders'

Bryce & Photoshop

 

Early Riders

The sky decided for radiance one day
in that journey of ours, and it seemed
a confession of honest unending light,
a penance perhaps, although night would
hold firm that eventual death was the
answer we might, in dying, desire.

We entered and departed the castle in what
seemed a single day, but it was a thousand
years we slept and this single day of coming
and going. We walked our horses slowly into
lingering memories of you as we rode both
east and west in one motion of time. That day
we found ourselves beside a temptress sea. We
stood aside where morning sun made penetrations
of light and the sea rolled her gentle heavings
toward the shore and the sky.

But it was the grail of your presence we desired.
Maybe here, where castle towers fight like
celestial gods for men to adore.
Maybe here, where you first divided us
and sent us wandering together,
my own flesh and I. We needed to dream as
your dream or was it so that we who made
shadows were also forever your dream? You
made two hopeless wanderers of us in one
direction, yet flesh divided as we awoke each
morning to seek you . We spoke no words and
even our eyes held silent as we devoured, alone,
each thought of you.

Then our horses grew bored and weary
and there seemed no finale to this passion
of ours that made new distance its home. Had we
been here before? Had we tried to turn around
and go back while the waves beside us mocked our
obsession like your sighs? We hungered still for the
trance of you, my lady of these towers:

You gave yourself like this empty boat that takes
a sailor, drowning in you, and drowns him in the sea.
But you left us not to be sailors nor other men, but
knights of postured solitude. We made fires of
everything for you, and still this morning sky, for
no reason burns new. I shall ask the other ladies of
this castle home how they ride and sleep all night,
beside early riders, and then I shall tell them of you.

- Poem ©2003 James Strecker -

All images protected by copyright ©Andy Simmons 1995-2003

If you have arrived from a gallery click here to open the main site page otherwise click the image to move on, thankyou.