ere words cannot describe
the art of love;
a man sits,
books and papers before him,

scattered...His eyes are lost
in the distance.
from nearby a woman
watches, wondering whether

he could be the one.
For so long
she's searched,
something ancient

stirring her within...
another time, seemingly
long ago--days without fear,
though the times teeming

with danger...Times, too,
when magic ruled the air
as sparkling
as early morning dew

graced across a wild-flowered meadow...
Some tall strong-backed man, singing
Always remembering, always reminding
me to listen for the true light

of my twin queens'
shimmering purity
of my beautiful
soul-mates...

This gruff-looking man
cheerful as he set about
repairs on a thatched cottage
hidden in a small clearing

deep within an old forest.
Faint brief images
and feelings
coursing anew...

Now, in the sunlit cafe
he writes of some bygone knight
lost within an entangling thicket
mostly of his own making.

Heaving is his bear-chested frame
much used to fighting--
on which tiny chirruping birds now perch,
as he sits, head in battered hands,

weeping...While his King stands,
high atop their Castle in the Rock,
keenly aware of those screeing cormorants
grouping in the mid-distance.

For an auger he looks,
his nostrils perceiving
something faintly sulfurous--
as if two carrion-seeking eyes

burned, beady with hate,
shrouded
from amidst the flapping
and encircling black vee's of the birds...

She watches him write,
his tanned long tawny legs
in disarray--one
on the table, the other

draped over a chair. A painful
shard of memory--her head
pressed to a shaggy breast,
the big gnarled hand

infinitely tender, in her hair
soothing, There, there...as if
to slip inside
for just awhile...

Feeling your presence near,
I pause, eyes amist,
wishing you would just sit--
here beside me,

no need for words.
Eyes alight, hearts beating
once
again.

above by Thomas Francis Noonan, 10/16/97; originally written summer of 1991, downtown Oakland, International Coffee Inn, 21st St. and Telegraph,recalled from memory and augmented with the most kind assistance of Maxine Hong Kingston, muse without equal...

Written after the Master, William Shakespeare, and his "sweet-complaining grievance[s]"played upon his metaphorical lute, music "fantastical" with "fancy"...

"...The just shall fearing see
These fearful chances,
And laughing shoot at thee
With scornful glances...
Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, Psalm 52 (c.1594)

"...O! that I were
Upon the hill of Basan, to outroar
The horned herd; for I have savage cause..."
Will Shakespeare,Anthony and Cleopatra,III.xiii
(alluding to Psalm 22)

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