Solstice

Richard Higgs

The night falls...
          (No: the night comes crashing down on my vulnerable, exposed head)
The Vibrations wake
and in their wake
leave lingering confusions of harmonies
-gorgeous-
of the spheres

A sleeping Lover's skin, taught,
rank with bodynightmoisture
evokes all the Absent Lovers' absences

The night trips,
          falls
-gracious me!-
          (The night is an armadillo:
          She has a shining armour to protect her soft body parts -
          Unlike humans, who leave their intimata
          Within reach of sleeping Lovers' hands
          Our armour is the daylight
          That prevents such unspeakable intimacies)

The Absent Lovers cackle in their dreams
as they watch the night slip
fall

...jealous of her grace.

maybe

Maybe they're jealous
Of a Callas cadenza
- (up to a top D-flat, every note perfectly executed, rallentando, ma non troppo)
Maybe not.

The night lapses,
          falls
on the Eve of the Apple
-we all have our wheelchairs: pretty curves and angles-
Her gravity ways
Are those of Orpheus the Newt
On the frets of the Absent Lovers' lyre
(There is a whole Nocturne of chiming Absent Lovers
In the breathing, heaving, chill present!)

The night cascades, births illegitimate children, tumbles, collapses,
          falls

it is the longest night
(the longest fall) - the solstice, the night of Absent Lovers' longest night

LitNet: 10 September 2004

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