Winter Solstice

Winter solstice, the earth open wide
With a heart crushed like footsteps in snow
(((fictitious persons disclaimers implied
To all listening from rooftops below)))
It had rained and the air was like perfume outside
As the sky changed

We began when the ground was still dry
Planting vineyards where vineyards don’t grow
Shaping cypress with pitch on both sides
For the nights when our trumpets won’t blow
That regret still there circling like vultures inside
As your face changed?
They don’t stay inside
(there but for Thy grace go I...)

Through the eyes of machines, immaculate scenes
That had already passed me by
All the stars on the ground, Noah’s ark in the clouds
Set sail in the flood of my mind
The other animals drowned in blasphemous towns
And asked as they passed me by:
“was to do as I please a European disease?”

Winter solstice, the earth had closed down
So with breastplates of righteousness low
Searched for streams in the caves underground
Where the Baptists and bootleggers go
And you smile but your vampire complexion still shows
And your past shows
It’s really all that shows
(so often unrecognizably so)

Through the eyes of machines viewed immaculate scenes
That had already passed me by
All the stars on the ground, Noah’s ark in the clouds
But the thought in the back of my mind:
“does my misery feed a metaphysical need
That’s long since passed me by
Neither reasoning why
Nor offering reply?”

Dear my newlywed wife
You’re not the love of my life
It had already passed me by---
Finally grasping the line
Casting pearls before swine?