local_library Lovers of Eternal Spring

by David Crews

Published in Issue No. 261 ~ February, 2019

After Rodin

 

I thought it would be larger

 

a small world shrouded in this embrace of two lovers. Two lovers

 

forgotten before the weight of eternal embrace

 

only here now

 

for all things that came before and before them, love.

 

In what sense? Of love made, lost

 

found again? More like two doves

 

frightened to flight, gone into gray sky only to return

 

the same rough bough, alight, flutter of wings in the dark green

 

lush canopy. You would need the weight of two

 

hundred doves

 

to hear the soft cooing remembered in morning light. It is

 

the impression of memory you hold

 

like the inside heart of a tree nestled, to embrace.

 

Even now

 

I see you there and somehow you feel new.

 

And the cooing comes as incantation, song we call

 

the presence shared here now with one another.

 

I say heart hear heavy. You say light wing flight.

 

What we cannot say is voice time gone, even as you

 

hold my hand, whisper into my ear

 

thoughts of temples, mosques, pyramids

 

and your warm breath floats

 

into everything I will call supreme lasting stone.

 

 

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DAVID CREWS (davidcrewspoetry.com) serves as editor for The Stillwater Review and director of the Silconas Poetry Center at Sussex County College. He is author of the poetry collection High Peaks (Ra Press, 2015), as well as a new book of lyric essays on the Adirondacks titled Wander-Thrush (Ra Press, 2018).