Point of Departure Five Love Poems by Leonard Clark
Point of Departure
Is it the wind crying,
You go.
I remain?
Or rain falling,
We shall meet again?
Wind
cries, rain falls.
Do stars decide
Who stays, who departs?
Will darkness hide
Both our hearts?
Who
goes? Who calls?
Can we hear what is said
Beneath these skies
By the lips of the dead,
Is it truth, is it lies?
There
are no judgement halls.
Now upon this shore (from Ultima Thule)
Now upon this shore we trace
Our two names to interlace
Till they marry with the tide
And on homing breakers ride.
And when sea has turned to stone,
Stone to glass, glass to bone,
Still our mingled names shall be
Written in eternity.
Silence and Water
Rain dropping from willow trees,
I came to a place of silence and water,
Crumpled your letter in in cold hand,
Dropped it, a mourner at my own funeral,
Into the long grave of the stream;
The bruised paper fell dead, carried away
Beneath a black arch, all hope drowned
Turned back then, the words printed on my
eyes,
“I have no comfort for you.”
As if it were comfort I needed,
Nor pity, but love
There was a name written, too. I knew it.
It was not mine. You had more than comfort for him.
I walk the soaking fields in silence and
water,
The name following me, stopping my ears;
Marooned in mist, I have no peace from it,
Your words magnified by the glass of the
stream,
Skies weeping with unquenchable tears,
You, floating with time and Ophelia out of
my days.
Winter Tears
High on his quartered vane
The cock swings round to see
The accusing sun appear,
A deep, revealing stain
On night’s virginity.
Below his naked perch
He, tongueless chanticleer,
Watches with arrogant eye
Cocks of earth strut by
Farmhouse and whitening church,
Hears them noisily hail
The morning of innocent snow.
Symbol of Love’s betrayal,
Deafen this shrieking sky,
Crow till my ears shall break,
You have no heart to ache,
Nor winter tears to fall;
Abandoned by Love I go
To burn in my judgement hall.
Your love is my light
Love,
Your love is my light,
Light on water, light in air,
Water and air my joy in You,
Joy in singing of bird, singing of star,
Bird, star, are life and light to me,
Life in water, light in star.
You shall have my love all my life.
For what is now begun
Can never have an ending, will go on.
Love,
Flowing as water, air,
Rivers of Eden’s joy,
(To become the wine and bread
Beyond Gethsemane).
So shall all life and light
Fold back, into each other,
Perfect, complete,
Be one again,
One,
As the holy beginning was,
Love.
© The Leonard Clark Estate