Point of Departure Five Love Poems by Leonard Clark

Point of Departure

Is it the wind crying,

You go. I remain?

Or rain falling,

We shall meet again?

Wind cries, rain falls.

Do stars decide

Who stays, who departs?

Will darkness hide

Both our hearts?

Who goes? Who calls?

Can we hear what is said

Beneath these skies

By the lips of the dead,

Is it truth, is it lies?

There are no judgement halls.

Now upon this shore (from Ultima Thule)

Now upon this shore we trace

Our two names to interlace

Till they marry with the tide

And on homing breakers ride.

And when sea has turned to stone,

Stone to glass, glass to bone,

Still our mingled names shall be

Written in eternity.

Silence and Water

Rain dropping from willow trees,

I came to a place of silence and water,

Crumpled your letter in in cold hand,

Dropped it, a mourner at my own funeral,

Into the long grave of the stream;

The bruised paper fell dead, carried away

Beneath a black arch, all hope drowned

Turned back then, the words printed on my eyes,

“I have no comfort for you.”

As if it were comfort I needed,

Nor pity, but love

There was a name written, too. I knew it.

It was not mine. You had more than comfort for him.

I walk the soaking fields in silence and water,

The name following me, stopping my ears;

Marooned in mist, I have no peace from it,

Your words magnified by the glass of the stream,

Skies weeping with unquenchable tears,

You, floating with time and Ophelia out of my days.

Winter Tears

High on his quartered vane

The cock swings round to see

The accusing sun appear,

A deep, revealing stain

On night’s virginity.

Below his naked perch

He, tongueless chanticleer,

Watches with arrogant eye

Cocks of earth strut by

Farmhouse and whitening church,

Hears them noisily hail

The morning of innocent snow.

Symbol of Love’s betrayal,

Deafen this shrieking sky,

Crow till my ears shall break,

You have no heart to ache,

Nor winter tears to fall;

Abandoned by Love I go

To burn in my judgement hall.

Your love is my light

Love,

Your love is my light,

Light on water, light in air,

Water and air my joy in You,

Joy in singing of bird, singing of star,

Bird, star, are life and light to me,

Life in water, light in star.

You shall have my love all my life.

For what is now begun

Can never have an ending, will go on.

Love,

Flowing as water, air,

Rivers of Eden’s joy,

(To become the wine and bread

Beyond Gethsemane).

So shall all life and light

Fold back, into each other,

Perfect, complete,

Be one again,

One,

As the holy beginning was,

Love.

© The Leonard Clark Estate