Eridanus

It is sunset, and the platinum sky
deepens to steel as I watch, waiting silently.
Now drizzle, now mist, the damp
stark rock and the verdant smell of the gardens;
here, even in midwinter, things grow, decay.

Here is the hour of melancholy. Dinner, lights coming on,
candles lit and hands clapsed, the life around me moves
at the speed of a heartbeat. Somewhere, a great love
has just kindled; another has been snuffed,
the last flame gutters and another begins.
I steep tea in the pot, straining the leaves
as the escapees swirl at the bottom of the cup
foretelling your arrival.

With you here, I look sidewise into the future, my hands
cupped around your faint chin, your hair sweeping
my too-solid wrists. The iron sky above us, the hollow hills
whispering your name forever.

I am not sure, even now, that you ever knew I loved you.
But you sit for a space with me, at the hour before the darkness
holds the eternal courts of the glittering stars, masked
for the winter through. The candle glowing
on your sweet remembered skin.

You are my winter constellation, the one who comes
only when the sky is grey and the world quiet.
This is always your gift--the sunset hour, the silent
way you touch my hand, the slip of water away from my eyes

and the path always leading towards the distant dark hills.


(Eridanus is a winter constellation; the name means river.)