Comforted Not Free
      (Valery)

Vague amnesty of fact or fate
The knowledge of some deep mistake
When blood danced at soul’s accession
Though moon-eyed whining murky woe
Still wheedles for propitiation
I kneel to memory’s truncheon
Rehearse my clammy exculpation

Thoughts recover me of one
Whose passion craved to lie with sense
To marry act and consciousness
His history a slow agility
So luculent with avid reason
Entwining love’s frail glitter

This cache uncovered in the mull
Drenches my cairn of pain in light
I burn for youth’s high giddy flight
And fevered blazoning upon the sun

It leaves me comforted not free

5/16-8/25/94, 4/19/07, 7/22/07

Copyright 1994, 2007 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.