Last Online:
04-17-2012 01:45 PM |
The Graveyard
The Graveyard
The stars are points of frigid light,
the moon a ball of ice,
slow drifting through the cloudy night,
cold beauty to entice.
The blustered wind is gusting through
the ice bound laden trees,
that groan with added weight anew,
from early rainstorm freeze.
The remnants of the old stone church,
outlined against the drifts
of snow beneath the weeping birch,
that bend among the rifts.
The weathered stone and rotting wood,
at angles all askew,
of headstones where the graveyard stood,
grotesque and gloomy blue.
He vowed he never would return
to this sad place so drear,
three score and six he sought to spurn,
her grave residing here.
Now that his life is nearly spent,
he hobbles with a cane.
His hair is white, his back is bent,
his joints are racked with pain
Within that church he married her,
she left him the same day,
he stayed until they buried her
and then he went away.
He was a loner through the years
and never loved again.
He cursed her name and shed his tears,
the leaving was her sin.
He lived a life of solitude,
enduring inner pain
and as he aged his attitude,
he bordered on insane
The weight of years had crushed him down,
as sanity returned
and in his shack in shantytown,
for her forgiveness burned.
With booted feet and overcoat,
gloved hands and hat pulled low,
A woolen scarf around his throat,
he set off through the snow.
He walked into the little town
and there he caught a train,
with guilt his mind is weighted down
like frozen winter rain.
He left the train and took a cab
to where he spent his youth.
The guilt did ever deeper stab,
that guilty sword of truth.
Leaning heavily on his cane,
he shuffled through the snow,
crusted with ice from winter rain,
in sunsets final glow.
In time he stood before her grave,
as the cold moon arose,
flooding in like a tidal wave,
the truth at last he knows.
She did not choose that day to die,
not on her wedding day.
All his life he lived a lie,
to blame her in that way.
Now there before her grave he cried
and dropped down on his knees.
“Forgive me, I wish I had died,
I beg forgiveness please.
Forgive this wretch who had to blame,
someone to bear your loss.
Forgive and take away my shame,
let me then bear thy cross.”
Out of that grave a spirit rose,
it hovered in the air,
like the silver moonlight glows
to shimmer and to flair.
A haunting voice upon the wind,
Said, “Now I can be free.
I now forgive the sin you sinned,
if you will come with me.”
He whispered, “Yes, with you I'll go,
forever by your side.”
With that the old man in the snow,
fell on her grave and died
The stars are points of frigid light,
the moon a ball of ice,
slow drifting through the cloudy night,
cold beauty to entice.
The blustered wind is gusting through
the ice bound laden trees,
that groan with added weight anew
From early rainstorm freeze.
Sartor
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,
. I wanted to quote, but would have quoted the entire poem. The rhyme, the execution, the content, all the elements that equal perfection is presented in this poem. I am just staring at the screen in awe, and quite speechless actually. I guess that says it all. Thank you for sharing another Sartor classic with us. 
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