Whispers to the Dreaming Maiden

Can you hear me, dreamer? I spied you there,
bathing in the sun within my pasture—
followed you home, lost lamb. Of what nature
is your solitude? Peace seeking? What rare
urge sent you to bathe in my sunlight, where
clover blooms to cheer my sheep, crystal pure
water runs that rill aslant knolls to cure
my earth its thirst. Here, in my land, I care
for all the lovely sheep. Now you, beauty
stray beneath my moon and dream your passion
as though it were yours alone. My duty
calls me hence, yet I linger in this fashion
to whisper gratitude, bless sweet Beauty
Her abundance for blessing my vision.

David M Pitchford
27 March 2008

Shadow Being

What manner of lover are you being?

You send no flowers, pen no poems, you

speak no gentle words in evening’s shadow

or under starry night. You paint no canvas,

carve no marble—how are you a lover

who never love? But let’s define this thing,

this abstraction called love, this sweetest thing

to artists; is it a state of being,

a state of doing, craft of a lover?

But no, to define the term lover you

must first define love. Is paint on canvas

love, its image, or perhaps some shadow

hint of essence? Does love somehow shadow

cast when strolling by? Is it any thing

that light can touch or pass by? On canvas,

what shade, what tint—blue, yellow, red—being

primary, they must be basic tones. You

would think with all our poetry ‘lover’

to be a well-defined term, one lover

archetype and every other shadow

to ideal. When thinking of love, do you

taste, smell, or sense a particular thing?

There’s no way to test states of being

except by effects, so should we canvass

artists to explain what paints each canvas

in their souls, what makes a person a lover—

Wait! Define love first. No sense in being

strayed by mincing terms; we’ll chase no shadow

lest we follow it to this elusive thing

called love. It’s maddening how sometimes you

know a thing, and yet its truth eludes you—

What mixes with pigments on the canvas

to allude to this mysterious thing?

Some force of sense beguiling the lover

in hypnotic trance to dance with shadow

and light into another self. Being

unique, each experience, each lover

is one thing and also its own shadow;

paint your canvas, lover—love is being.

David M Pitchford
06/06/06: revised 06/11/08

I Almost Drowned

Spring, and the water lilies were in bloom,

so I took my Grecian urn down pondside

to fill with water for my hyacinths

and Labradors. What a delight to find

seven maids swimming naked and brazen

in spring’s mad equinox. And yet . . . oh pale-

fleshed goddesses, how can mortal choose one

beauty’s epitome from others? I

could not! And so I slid in to dance them

all into the shallows; but seven nymphs

in shallows are a daytime Bacchanal!

Shamed, face flushed and manhood spent, I ran home

to nurse my blooms and groom my hounds, never

to return in spring—to drown in beauty.

David M Pitchford
13 May 2008