The Gold at the Bottom of the River

There are beautiful things in the sadness,

else why does woe, woe and ever mourning

and sounds of a boys' choir sting and stab

at unseen wounds, known but forgotten?

a gate opens, and music, birdsong,

we were never warriors the way we should have been

but this is our Valhalla; we enter like the gods

who never paid for the walls, who never feel

the bite of iron in the back, just the dampness

of the blood and

leave the gates open behind, because whatever

could hurt us now

but each other?

It is always twilight, the edges of things are always obscure;

there is a shape, indistinct, on all sides, above and below;

the edges we don't see

cut

so softly

I thought it was a kiss;

when it was over the heat lingered

like my name on a breath

exhaled in the cold night, drifting up toward the moon.

Dissipating, finally gone, high above the roofs,

drifting over walls,

through leaves, like a memory finally released,

turning sparkling folding over itself,

and the bells ring in the morning and the birds leap from the branches

and the sky is high and the rich shall have their ice in summer

and the poor shall have their ice in winter

and the water will flow over and over and on

and they will close the gates

and say themselves, yea at last we are free at last we know solace

and then and then-