Dedicated to Brayden, My Nephew, Who Has Never Seen This Place

Will you take me with you?
I want to feel the beat of your heart when you know the kiln for the first time.

I want to see the expression in your eyes
when your glance becomes something else.  Something more.

I want to hear your heart rise into your voice when you sigh
for the way the light falls, heavy with history.

I want to show you each brick strewn, each shaft toppled,
every fern and every sapling, growing or arching from crevice or what once once chimney and wall.

Then, I want to think with you on what was made here,
about each man who labored here; his name and face, his hands.

I want to walk with you, back along a pathway,
through a forest, greener than your eyes can bear to ever leave
again.







I

Limekiln, I hear your call.
Though you may sense my presence only in the form of long ago footfalls, 
once, I wandered your fern-strewn trail ways.
Still, I tread your emerald miles as they traipse across the landscape of my heart.
Someday, I will return and whisper my name, so you can recognize the heart of a child you once captivated with your light.

I will tell you a story of a wise river.
And another story of a young girl who became someone else,
the one who believed in your wishful whispers, of what was still to come,
a lifetime, so soon to meet perfection of an imperfect past.

Only when too few yesterdays remember to repeat my name,
in the language of your laughing waters, in the susurration of wind as it runs its fingers through your leaves…
Only then, will you know me again for who I have become.
And still, you will love me. 

Look for me then and you may see my reflection,
somewhere along the moss-laden banks of a brook too old for heartbreak,
maybe still walking your unforgotten pathways, knowing my way beyond the path’s end.

It is then I will leave you a final time,
with one wave of my hand and one breath, mingling with yours,
our parallel heartbeats finding their way back to the other.

And at long last, we will remember the days when childhood dreams still came true.

We followed a furtive trail of wild things
toward our shaggy, shy strand where the water went shallow
but its wisdom ran deep.

Molten skies breathed their gold down upon our bodies,
and down upon the river as it roved and ripened its secrets,
its artful currents rising into us.      

That minstrel river, 
who's old stories still wend through who we were before. . .

The candle cannot darkness part
as my frail wings tremble to the beat of my heart,

and the grieving, moonless sky of night
laments lost stars with their fragile light,

while darkness rests in the palm of night’s hand, 
in sorrow, I witness night blanket the land.

But what does the river’s voice say of my pain 
when nothing answers to the call of its stones,

as they plead with an earth who forgot how to listen,
and the trees bow low as their soft tears glisten?

I cannot kneel, I will not bow, I do not vow to trust again
this sky too empty or a river gone mute,
if my broken winged heart dare not refute

that the flame of the candle could not lend the start 
for the witness I was to mend my own heart.

But as heart and wings begin to still,
those lost stars whisper that sunrise will

remember a candle that tried to fight
for the one who refused to bow to night.

I gave to you my only heart    
     
Out on the moonlit countryside, 
under the tears of the willow tree.

I cannot forget the willow tree, 
though moons have set and risen and set.

And dreams will lift and fall again,
will lift forever through surfacing nights.

When darkness chides just a little too softly
that everything I gave 
was not enough for you.

Under the tears of the willow tree.

I gathered you to me, 
those bells in your voice,
your knells echoed through me, 
my music of choice.

Each poem, a treasure,
so sweet and so fair,
a blessing, a pleasure, 
a song or a prayer.

Then mute fell the song
of your lyrical muse,
and, oh, how I longed 
to believe and to choose

to answer your call 
with my own poem’s tone,
pretending the fall
was not my voice alone.

But hope will awaken
if words of my soul
forget songs forsaken
and poems they stole

till blessings, till treasures,
till the song in each prayer
reechoes the pleasures
and truths waiting there,

and poets, and bards
to the gatherer sing,
and muses reward
me with ballads they bring.

For no sorrow stays 
in this troubadour’s hall.
Each stanza; it plays
when I sing and I call.