Immortal Bird

What drives us on?

What drives us on?

I left something of myself in you

Fourscore, twenty, thirty

In your body and in your flesh

In your vault of skin

I was nothing for you

But the shadow of another love

That one day for you

Would shift the skies

To pastures blue

Streaked with passing and loss

Tortoise green in my eyes

From the moss of my past

You arise

And lightly then I saw you smile

With ivory throat and ivory eyes

At night I catch you before I sleep

And if I died before I wake

I prayed that you my heart might keep

I cannot hold your tunnelled eyes

Near my heart any longer

All this love is nothing truly:

Mist of moons' breath

Grit of evening

The grass was green (I now recall)

Before my own particular fall

I saw we were both really

Masks on nothing

(The moonlight sweeping over northern beaches)

All the trees stand stripped

Just silhouttes of memories

At night I have started to dream of you:

Your eyes are wide

And shot through with seablue