The Friend’s Counsel


For you, the shadows are a dark tongued language,
and you find in them, all the tones
of that foreign land that echoes you.
I have always thrived in the dazzle
of this light that casts away the
dank and furtive promise.

I want the world to speak in the clear
voice of shapes,
I want an immaculate music of pillars
rising from the ruined flowerbeds.
But in this divested light, only
the outward dares speak.

You, who listen, who abide
the crimson banners of your dawn temple,
why do you understand
that which you cannot translate,
your cherished melancholy,
your contraband life?

I will have my order,
clean, sterile and magnificent.
But still, I envy your assiduous preparation
for euphoric desolation,
this prowess I have discovered
in your sensitivity.