Lord, a heart lies in anguish’d ruins,

haunt of those whose boots are stuffed full

of the detritus found only on lonely hillsides

and mucky marshes.

 

There is no comfort in comfort;

comfort itself is a mockery, a shadow.

My soul is o’er grown with the sadness of sin,

untimely and magnetic North to this sorry South.

 

Finding is, to me, just another losing

of what was never found, nor seen;

the secondary reality of a desert’s shimmering heat

rising above an already parched, dead land.

 

Beasts of memory and regret feed

on the bowels of my discontent,

and I am emptied, disavowed of what might

otherwise provide hints of hope, of life.

 

The heartsickness of a harrowed soul

is its own reward to the one who is lost;

wretched reminder of yesterday’s loss by

the infected, troubled mind.

 

Is there to be yet a darker dark

in this once proud cave,

suspended from the slippery ceiling

of this crowded, empty space?

 

How long?

How long, O hidden one,

must I only think I see what troubled images

broken mirrors bring of half a man?

 

Does your heart still break for the broken and breaking brood

of souls, unwhole, and garden walls, both shattered and unsure?

Do your light and lilting footsteps no longer fall

upon once green grasses; once ripe gardens?

 

I can’t remember your name.

Do you remember mine?

If this be my last will and testament,

so be it, if only others may not find me thus.

 

If your face be turned away,

may it be for the sake of a clearing breath,

a yearning sigh, a readying glance,

that in returning…

 

sees me again.