I am my lover's secret island,
And hidden there we lie impassioned.
Where summer seems to us forever,
In Truth, is only winter's cover.
His heart he cast adrift to me.
Upon my shores it washed from the sea,
And when I reached to touch, alas!
He smiled there through a looking glass.
The glass beat like the sands of time,
And though it said his heart was mine
I felt a wind blow cold and deep.
I knew this heart I could not keep.
I picked the glass up from the sand
And lo! He through it did transcend,
Then came alive when met our eyes,
Which made
the air electrified.
Into his limbs and trunk I climbed,
In this imaginary shrine--
Our fervent love's brief fading moment,
Before our
stolen time was spent.
O how in such harmonious sway,
So deep inside his branches I lay,
Tender caresses, like garments to wear,
About me he wrapped and stroked my hair.
He held me tight----my heartbeats
failed,
For soon before the sunset paled
He returned again to her who holds
His heart, though it with her grows cold.
Now gone, his love still lingers aglow
Upon the
sand.
His fleeting shadow
I cup inside my hands and press
Once more
the warmth against my breast.
But like the sands through fingers pour,
It falls again upon the shore.
Barbara
Benjamin
Tetrameter
quatrains with rhymed couplets
BBP186