The April Fools
The April Fools
Later,
when they had done with the
business of hurting each other,
the accusers would blame the stars
with their incessant gossiping
of immortal loves
when gods had walked the earth.
She
was sitting by a moon lake,
gathering lilacs,
questioning moonbeams,
teaching them how to laugh
flirting with wind echoes.
He
was stumbling through the days
composing poetry,
balancing words on sounds
constructing half forgotten moments
into little stick houses,
drunk with visions.
It’s not as if they
did not see this happening, could
not see this happening. They could
touch, see and hear, But so could
the love witches, As stars are sometimes
called, and what amulets can you use
on stars.
So they slipped
into each other’s eyes
and together
they found hidden wants
and familiar sorrows
lost ages ago, when they were
too brash to save things,
and wore each other’s sorrow
in new and different ways.
And as if that were not enough,
they built majestic shrines
in their images,
for early dawn worships
before they had taken food or drink,
like dedicated monks
testing their vows
with the days of devotion.
And they lived in those
old rented sighs
as if they had owned them,
gathering lilacs,
chanting forevers,
babbling of rainbows and fireflies
Like April Fools.
Mark Conte, copyright Cross Cultural Press, 1986
|