Wedding Dawn
This is the morning of my
wedding.
This is the morning of the phoenix
rising from the ashes
of what used to be
my world.
This is the morning of undoing all the old
and it is sparkling blue and full of energy
that waits to bounce the sleepy servants
from their beds of straw
and makes the cockerels in the courtyard strut.
I am standing at the window.
I was a witness to this sunrise;
I stood and watched the pastels
shade through colours the likes
you'd never seen unless you stood
and watched with me,
and every star that died
was but a stepping stone away
from times that now belong
to yesterday.
The night was cool and sweetly breezy,
the night was hard and long
and I remembered
all I was
for all I served
in all these nights
before this night.
From the moment of this sunrise
although the vows have not been spoken yet,
my life will be another woman's work.
A someone whom I have not met
and whose complexities
I cannot contemplate,
not yet at least,
its still some hours before dawn.
It's still some hours where I can remember
in my mind's eye
in fleeting impressions
that touch my body with misty tendrils
here and there
who I used to be.
I won't allow myself to think of thee, my Lord.
I will be yours - not yet, the sun has not yet risen! -
and I am still communing with
a thousand ghosts and spectres,
some have come to love me,
some to grieve, and some
to mock my never ending foolishness.
It is the custom that on this night
I should be all alone,
all by myself.
I could not see you and
if you were here,
I would be swept upon your shoulder
like sand to the sleeping lion in the desert,
so oblivious, so sweetly safe at home,
with nowhere else I'd want to go.
Perhaps the ancient keepers of the customs
have a point.
Perhaps its right for me to read
the funeral rites and say farewell
to all my lovers,
those I loved, and those
I used for sport;
and some who taught me
and some who learned from me
how you can truly feel as though
you were a man.
This is the morning of my wedding.
The sun has risen and I hear
the footsteps of the serving ladies
and the rustle of the dress they're carrying.
I will step into the waters they prepared for me,
and when I emerge,
I will be fresh and sparkling new
and all the ghosts will be quite safely trapped
inside a tiny wooden chest
with silver buckles and a silver lock,
and thrown into the river
without a second thought,
and my lord will cast a wondering glance at me,
but will be too afraid to ask me
what or why.
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© SFX 97 |
