The Approach of Love and Kisses

She stops at the edge of herself and sings.
She courts herself, pushes her long cry to the sky.
Her dress is open beneath Heaven
O she is thoroughly charming.

She sheds a light upon the vague waves
She walks as with lantern – her hand
White in its purity
Between her feet, the dead leaves whirl

And beneath her hat she keeps an azure jewel.

- after Louis Aragon

Elsa Before the Mirror

It was the beautiful birth of our tragedy,
And all day long, my love sat before her mirror.
How I loved to see her, combing her golden hair.
Those patient hands, soothing a shining holocaust.
It was the beautiful birth of our tragedy.

And all day long, my love sat before her mirror.
combing her golden hair, and, as I have told you,
It was the beautiful birth of our tragedy.
She plays a thoughtless air upon a golden lyre.
Yes, all day long, as she sits before the miror

She combs her golden hair, as I have told you,
It is her martyrdom. That pleasant memory :
all day long, my love sat before her mirror
Arranging flowers, after the holocaust.
No word of the other in her place. I told you ;

Her martyrdom ; the pleasure of that memory ;
It was the beautiful birth of our tragedy.
The world ; looking like a mirror of damnation.
The comb ; parting shining tongues of fire
The flames are bright in the corners of my memory.

It was the beautiful birth of our tragedy.
That week ; it was a Thursday.
And all day long, my love sat before her mirror.
And she saw looming Death, gazing from the glass.
Each of us ; the players of this ; our tragedy.

Oh these ; the best of a godforsaken world.
You will know our names, though I will not tell you
What do the flames of that day signify ?
Or her golden hair, when she comes to the mirror
And, combing, says nothing of the holocaust.

- after Louis Aragon

Sonnetta

Speak, that I might take your music to my core
To hold it there,through night’s dreamless lies.
And I will guard it, through the senseless days of our lives.
The great hope and fight of love is for more.

I take up this tangle with all my valor
For would you have it wasted ? The Spirit of my life ?
Or transfigured – new in you – my wife ?
Your kiss makes hot my cheek’s cool palor.

Seeking Truth in Love, I was dissatisfied,
And I looked in the eyes of many,
But in every eye, I looked inside

And there deception spied.
Truth – there wasn’t any.
But all doubt died when yours I tried.

- a transfusion from the medieval Italian poet
Guido Calvacanti (13th century)