Arcadia

Autumn's come, my maple's leaves
have changed from green to brilliant fire
and, as if diseased,
lie broken, wilted, tired
upon unquickened ground.
Indian Summer's rebound

has exhausted itself against winter's
uncaring will. Soon savage winds,
by pity undeterred,
inexhorable and
cold will seek unshuttered
spaces. Home fires will sputter

and dance desperately for life and heat.
Forbidding, desolate, Arcadian vistas
whisper grim defeat
and pilfer hope as
surely as darkness speaks "surrender".
Yet, my love, as bright as spring remembered,

denies the dark, unhemispheres
my willing spirit. Freed from Time's
unforgiving year,
the heart's sublime
and unrepentant logic shatters
fear and speaks of matters

timeless. Like Sidney's Arcadia, my love dreams
a new reality. Her eyes, like starlight,
speak mysteries which seem
surer than winter, give respite
to my emboldened soul. Sweet peace
runs like sap by winter's cold released.

Unfettered joy and joyful revelation shatter temporal
constraints, dispel lack and loss, deny mourning.
In Arcadia, winter's ephepmeral
hold gives way to spring.
I rest me in her pastoral glade,
sure that all is light and all's right made.

Is there a canticle here intoned?
The heart's hemisphere is its own.


((Note: This one is for the magic, lost and recovered, and for hope))