Rapture

Does her beauty sleep alone
that her leaves have all fallen in the night
Whose trees shiver quietly within their new found nakedness
and yet not so immodest is the wind as it caresses
the starkness of limbs now bare

Clouds churn in the half light
rolling barrels of thick-black smoke spinning silently on the horizon
Oil upon water; delicately contorting the dawn
with the soft and wistful mutiny of their unspoken revolutions

The sun begrudgingly awakens
pride subdued by the currents of its reckless circumstance
Therefore not but a shadow of its self it clambers listlessly into the sky
treading the waters of its own light

And the streets scurry with ocher
umberings of motherless children chased along by the wind
The air tepid is yet sweet with their laughter
I am haunted by its inflection as her soul gathers in the twilight
- Of my shadow

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Ava

Brightened belle -

let down the sun in your hair
and dance with me in the moonlight
as we set sway to the laughter of falling leaves
and the lonesome jubilee of owl song
Then darken your eyes and kiss me but once
if only you to see the sparkle in mine
and be the stillness in my arms
‘til the morning
- comes

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2008