Shadowdance

The wind blows strong;
The moon is high.
Ashes fall like rain
From the gunmetal sky.

The heart of the forest,
Amongst the oak,
The moon above and the ground below,
I shiver with emptiness beneath my cloak.

I stand alone, thinking of times that are gone,
Before an audience of falling leaves.
Out of the depths of these darkened surrounds,
I cry unto thee.

You and I were so beautiful
Although our time was short.
It's hard to believe I'm so alone,
And in these ashes I am standing without a sword.

I always knew
That I could fly,
That in my dreams
I could take to the sky.

But now I'm chained with one thousand chains,
Each a day's walk in length,
And my gnawing hunger for you
Saps my little-remaining strength.

The world is dark;
It begins to rain.
Every beat of my heart
Tears me with pain.

I can't believe I'm going to die.
With longing I turn to the weeping black sky,
Longing that at least I will rest my weary head
Forever upon the great stars of the night.

For no beauty has ever conquered
The vast borders of time,
No, not even thine,
But the moon never dies.

Surrounded by those that I trust,
Surrounded by those that understand me,
I'd hold you here always if I could,
For I can still hear you singing to me.

The winds come again
And extinguish the soothing glow of my failing flame,
And as I wipe the long hair of the full moon
Back from the calm eyes of the cool night, I see your face.

---

Originally written:    August 17, 2002
Put online:    August 18, 2002
Discussion:    Writing this poem was like pulling teeth. It sat in word/phrase form on two canary legal pad pages for a few weeks before I finally wrestled it out of my head. (This is a direct result of summer--I have much more difficulty writing, but I digress.) I'm not exactly sure what to say about this piece because I don't exactly know what it means. It could almost be the fifth act of "Thy Pyre" with a few changes. Here's what I think it means (please keep in mind that the final stanza is perhaps one of the most important). The character has recently lost his woman to the hand of death (the "wind" of the poem). He is also approaching the end of his own life (his "failing flame"), for whatever reason, but he does not fear this (the "soothing glow of my failing flame"). Time passes in the poem ("gunmetal sky" indicating not as black as the night would be to "weeping black sky" indicating the darkness of night). He dies (the wind "extinguishes the soothing glow..."), and, as he had hoped, he rests his head "forever upon the great stars of the night." In the last two lines of the poem he basically discovers that his woman is there, she is the moon, her beauty is everlasting,... One further clarification: The lines referring to those that I trust or those that understand me imply that Nature or the trees/forest and the moon and stars and vast emptiness of space are the only entities that I trust or that understand me--NO PEOPLE! Oh, yeah, and another thing. I don't believe in the whole life after death concept, but I do have an imagination, so there you have it. In conclusion (finally), this poem is very enigmatic and ethereal, and I'm probably wrong in my own analysis of it, because, after all, I don't exactly know what it means...


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