A la bella Virginia

No one I have known would confuse you with the night.
I walked among too few brave enough to love you.
Embracing only perennials, they were cowed.
You would have merged with seed, starting over,
your belly’s mound blossoming between us.

The stars were like the sun where we were born
to walk paths that meet but have disappeared.
Now the moon is a desert, perpetual day.
Age has brought us too little to live on.
There is more to life than being lovers.

Yet there is ample future left to fight.
Who once counted himself among the brave goes wild
now like then, though his name is not the child’s
whose memory's presence is embodied by light.

(11 October 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander