Loves Dues

He left yesterday. Images of fallow roads
puncture solitude, then fade. The sun erodes
my thoughts like a dry sponge. They grow dim -
love’s tendrils wind their way around my heart
to build on solid ground a world apart
that may by gentle force go on and round him.

The sky is not my friend today;
it casts a garish spell on dales and dreams.
It counterpoises Camelot.
I’m heartbroken, quite unwell,
denizen prisoner of inner space
where only elves dare tread and trim with lace
my memory of him; a rejected pawn
with bunker-shaped dome, afraid of dawn.
Weary nomad by my love accursed,
quarrying sadness and thirst
in uninhabited plateaus.
My life dissolves in threads.

Read the riddle of subterranean
fears, my eggshell life. Players in this game
deserve three lives, and I, poltroon,
dare not pursue the sentimental lane
with one puny chance of earthly gain.
To fall in line might take a thousand years
burrowing through love’s harsh confines-
Is it I who writes these lines?

Shining softly on my bed, mock moon,
a gray, autumnal calm spreads down my spine,
has stilled the pain, my oaths may undermine.