She poured the tea. Vaguely I watched her hands.
The mask was fitted: in my wandering dream
Were boulder-broken valleys, a strange land.
Remote, astonished, I stood by a stream
Holding her hand in mine. The afternoon
Moved in my bones. Sun flecked the leaves and sand.
And she seemed fragile: but with roots in stone,
Blue-veined, the flower of a northern land.
And then things changed: and do not ask me why:
But privately and gently, as her hand
Might let mine fall, all love became a lie:
My gesture broke upon a dream beyond
Scones and my witty mouth and those chic cups
And the strange look that fussed me into rhyme:
An inarticulate wincing at the lips:
At last the key: and I came back to Time.
There to achieve a root, slowly to grow,
Is all my will. Here no one can elude
Desire, but in this city, when I go,
I’ll leave a bedtime and destructive mood.
Her anger dwells there, wistful; and my drouth
Burns in the shadow country of a dream
Where her cool mouth flows backward from my mouth
And her long hands sustain a golden stream.
(Dominic Frank Moraes)
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Based on Topics: Time Poems, Dreams Poems, Flowers Poems, Cities Poems, Desire Poems, Tea PoemsBased on Keywords: blue-veined, privately, wincing, witty, bedtime, fussed, scones, chic, boulder-broken