(after Mallarmé)
The moon grew sad. Abstracted seraphim,
weeping with their bows in their hands, in the calm
of misty flowers, played on mortal violas
white sighs glazing the deep blue of His corollas –
it was the sacred day of your first kiss.
My reverie, content to be martyred like this,
drew a lucid drunkenness from that scent
left without regret or disappointment
by the pruning of a dream in the gardener’s heart.
Eyes on the ancient roadway, I walked apart;
when, your hair wild with the gold of evening
you appeared before me, actual, laughing,
I thought of the fairy with a crown of light
who paced once upon a time through the night
of an only child, letting those half-closed hands of hers
blizzard down white bouquets of fragrant stars.
