I thought my heart was hard as frozen earth
so cold and hard that no new life could grow.
I thought my heart was safe, unfeeling; dead.
And with a kiss, you showed me I was wrong.

We had a spring and I learned how to love
again, and more and more than I had known
too high for books and films to capture us
and like fresh earth I let you put down roots.

So from the barren ground there sprung a tree
so great it shook the world when five winds blew;
so beautiful that angels stole its leaves
indeed, so tall its roots became my heart

and after spring came summer's arcane joy
for which the words could not exist to tell
the marvels that we saw, and lived by day
or myst'ries witnessed under lunar light

I fear that now we are in our autumn;
even the leaves the angels loved are few
and while the beauty now transcends delight
strange thoughts of winter's chill now haunt silence

I do my best to smile and live as hard
(but over the horizon storm clouds loom)
believing life will last forever (how?!)
(still here the lightning's flash and thunder's boom.)

The storms and ants will take the forest's trees
and bring down those that stand aloft while dead
but savage is the heaven's wrath that fells
the tallest of them all still in its prime.

For love lost once was never love, but now
I know the roots and branches that we've built
and fear that none may stand where they have been
nor ever fill uprooted love's abyss

for wrench the tree from what's become warm earth
and like the jungle, nothing will remain
but shrubs and rats and that which water leaves
until it all becomes a desert; dead

and so begins the winter of the Tree
with icy winds that herald snow and loss
when all becomes a shadow of before
and any future hope of joy is gone

but oh! the perfect moments will live on
and we have seen and felt what even God
will seldom see; and we have shared a love
that's quite above that ever been before

so cry with me mi mia, and stay with me awhile
for summer still is with us, with our spring
and autumn too, and join with me in laughing
as love has taught us how, and smile with me

as you read this; also when you're alone,
for Life that granted moments, that echo
in our minds. Do we owe life a living
because we threw our candles in the fire?

For living and loving so fast and deep
that my heart, once cold, is now charred, burnt ground
yes, barren again, but now from our fire,
and with a warmth that will last forever

11/02/2010

Author's Note: Written in a fit of passion for my only love, as circumstances forced us apart before our time.

Posted on 11/03/2010
Copyright © 2025 Ben Evans