Dark, comfort

the pang, the pain

of not having the destiny of day

not even the company of day.

What more activity

could drain

the heart of more Hope,

of consolation

or the mere life of passion,

than miserable dreaming

and dispirited hoping.  But...

Sleep, do not abandon

that world unreal

where for once Love

loneliness feels,

but in dawn rays kill.

Sigh in the contradictions

of dream's distraction

and in the light, in heart-driving spikes,

that Soul's Love

sits calmly behind

and the Spirit is helpless

in bringing it beside.

July 2000