Rebirth
(to a Nightingale)

I still hear the echo of white silk
brushing against your skin
in the silent pause between one trembling breath and another.

Once, in a shaded garden
filled with the melodies of birds
whose names and jeweled feathers
have been lost in time-veiled forgetfulness,

We danced beside a jade fountain,
white silk and violet,
floating, circling, spinning round in graceful adoration;

Sharing a feast of honey-scented kisses,
your soft cries the songs of nightingales.

Our silken robes discarded,
your hair a dark tide,
upon the ruby woven carpets and pearl embroidered pillows;

I traveled into the blackness of empty, ebony space
through the endless night of your eyes,
while the rain murmured to us of eternity.

A long sleep in fields of summer and a journey

Though the returning has wrought your hair in golden fire
and azure dawn into your eyes,
I am still lost in the memory of unbearable tenderness
in ancient afternoons,

And I find that I am now the darkness,
for you do not remember.

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